Falling
by Dark Rune
Summary: The devastating consequence of a past mistake badly breaks a young man's spirit--and drives the only one with the power to heal him to the edge of madness. (ET, SS) Part 6 Uploaded!
1. Blind

Disclaimer: The characters and settings of Card Captor Sakura do not belong to me, but to the talented artists of CLAMP. I do not profit from this story, and, as I am a poor, struggling college girl, there really *is* no reason to sue me. ^_^   
  
Categories: E/T, S/S, Drama, Dark, Future   
  
Rating: R (profanity, violence, darkness, adult themes)   
  
Author's Notes:   
I've been around the fanfiction community for a very long time, but since this is the first time I've come out with a fic in *years*, I may be a bit rusty. ^_^;;   
  
Warning: I'm a college student (go engineering majors!), so I will most definitely come out with chapters very, very slowly, and even more slowly around midterms and finals. I don't mean to be, well, mean, but that's just how life is. Please be patient. ^_^   
  
Feedback: Constructive criticism, whether positive or negative, is welcomed and very appreciated. Flames will be ignored or laughed at extensively.   
  
Archivers: Please ask first. Thank you.   
  
Synopsis: The devastating consequence of a past mistake badly breaks a young man's spirit and slowly drives the only one with the power to heal him to the edge of madness. (E+T, S+S)   
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
His palms burned as he gripped the mage staff that his enemy held menacingly close over his head, and he was sickened to hear flesh--his own flesh, he observed mechanically--sizzling against the black heat to which it was exposed. The dark power dimmed his vision drastically, almost blinding him, and he felt as if he were suffocating under the intense burden of fighting back. He was drowning, as surely as he knew this was going to be his last fight, and his motions were heavy, lethargically slow, the pressure in his mind and his heart and his lungs growing too much to be bearable for very much longer. Breathing became a serious challenge, and thinking clearly enough to cast any kind of coherent spell was too great a task for his frayed mind, already overwhelmed with preventing the enemy from contaminating his thoughts.   
  
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted smoky tendrils of tainted magic surrounding him, in position to envelop him in their deadly embrace, and he gritted his teeth in cold anticipation. As his adversary assaulted him with another mental attack, his knees nearly buckled under the tremendous weight of the enemy's physical power and the strain of maintaining a magical barrier.   
  
He had already failed anyway, he realized detachedly, seeing the motionless figure lying just a few meters behind the enemy and feeling the sharp stab of loss and sorrow in his heart all over again.   
  
He had never hated anything as much as the evil he was facing, and he wished desperately that he could exact his vengeance upon it. But in his bloody condition, there really was no way he could win. There was no escape but death, and he very badly wanted to welcome it.   
  
He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He didn't want to fight. He just wanted to do something to express his grief, and tears stung his eyes as he glimpsed her limp form lying so far from his reach, reminding him that he had arrived too late to save her. Her beauty, her long, rich tresses of silky hair, her honey-light voice, her wonderful smile, her deep, deep kindness and wisdom, her strength, and her unconditional love all flashed before his eyes in the memories he had of her, and he wanted to weep for what he had lost. He wanted to show the world what it had lost.   
  
Perhaps if he had been in a more delusional, more selfish state, he would have welcomed death gladly and passively, but then the rational part of him unexpectedly reasoned against suicide.   
  
What about your daughter? it asked stubbornly, rationally, jolting his world into perspective with an abruptness that shook him to his core.   
  
What about your son?   
  
What about the friends you made?   
  
What about your family?   
  
How will they feel?   
  
How will they live?   
  
He was reminded, all of a sudden, that she was not the only one in his world, that his world wasn't isolated from everything and everyone else. His world was connected to others, and those connections stretched beyond one life, beyond even one lifetime.   
  
Thoughts of people he loved encouraged him to fight, and they inspired him to at least die trying to destroy what he should not have released in the first place. He couldn't let his loved ones share this sad fate. He couldn't let them shoulder the burden that he alone should have been carrying for his own foolishness and his own arrogance in a time long past.   
  
If he was going to die, he thought decisively, then his enemy was going to die with him. He wouldn't give evil another chance to hurt anyone else again. He would make sure of that.   
  
He collected his thoughts until the burning sensation in his hands was replaced with a blissfully warm numbness, and with a final surge of raw power and desperately single-minded concentration, he shoved forward, surprising his opponent, and focused the damaging force of his remaining power into his enemy's face.   
  
Even in his weakened state, he still had a large amount of magical ability left.   
  
"NOW YOU DIE!!!" he yelled savagely, for a moment lighting up the darkened confines of his mansion with the brightness of the immense power he unleashed.   
  
The enemy, arrogant and believing that victory was inevitable, was taken aback by the sheer determination in its prey's eyes. Before it could even react, it was obliterated by the young man's accumulated power. In an instant of controlled rage, the fight was over.   
  
The young magician gaped at where his enemy once stood, exhausted beyond any hope of recovery. So much had been going on at once that as soon as his enemy was gone, the absolute stillness in the air jarred him, and he shuddered. In the silence and darkness that followed, the young man swayed on his feet, cold chills wracking his bruised and battered body, his hair, matted with sweat and blood, falling over his face.   
  
The fight had ended so quickly that he was startled into thinking. Stunned into asking what the hell was going on. Shocked into wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now, now that his world had ended. He was shocked into simply *feeling*.   
  
And he hurt.   
  
In the silence and the darkness, he choked back a sob as he stood, wavering, looking around with a dazed expression that betrayed the fact that he wasn't really seeing anything anymore and that nothing in the world mattered to him. His face, usually set in a secretive grin, now twisted into a pained, bitter smile, a grotesque parody of the whole, happy man he had once been.   
  
But he never again would be.   
  
He simply stood for a few minutes, disoriented, before he found the will and the energy to move again.   
  
His ragged breathing was the only sound in the room, and as he stepped forward, an unnaturally loud crunch beneath his foot made him aware that he had just stepped on his glasses. He looked down at the mass of twisted metal and crushed lenses, almost chuckling bitterly at the thought that his shattered glasses perfectly symbolized his heart. Cursing as his initial shock began to wear off, he moved forward, brutally flattening his glasses completely under his shoe as guilt constricted his chest.   
  
He knew his weakness had caused her death, and he knew that his weakness had caused the deaths of two other beings he loved just as well. If they were alive, they would have come running to him to care for him, but since they weren't smothering him with love and attention as would be required after such an ordeal, they were most definitely gone.   
  
And that hurt even more.   
  
As much as they liked to believe they protected him, he still held their fragile lives in his hands. His failure had cost them dearly.   
  
But it hurt most of all to know that she was dead because of him. She was dead not because her life was inextricably tied to his as the others' were, but because she loved him, and he loved her.   
  
Holding back a grief-stricken sob, he staggered clumsily to her unmoving body on the floor, crumpling to his knees as he reached her side. And when he saw the battered condition her body was in, the shredded clothes revealing injuries in her skin that were too deep and too tainted with blackness to heal, tears finally fell from his eyes. His shoulders shook uncontrollably, and all he could think of was how badly he wanted to be where she was because without her, there was nothing left on earth for him. Without her, he had no future, no life.   
  
So he would join her in the next life.   
  
He'd done his duty, hadn't he? There was no more reason to stay on this planet. He just wanted to be wherever she was.   
  
For several long moments, he stared at her face, beautiful in the mocking slumber of death, and he longed to see her alive to smile at him once more. But the smooth skin of her cheek was cool to his seared, seeking fingers, and no amount of magic he had or that anyone had would bring her back.   
  
Yet he yearned to be where she was.   
  
He remembered a spell he had learned long ago, when he was still studying different styles of magic from around the world. He had never thought to use it before, dismissing the spell as unreliable superstition, but it was precisely this kind of magic that had caused the enemy to appear, and he no longer had any choice but to believe in its power. So he used it.   
  
With a final, shuddering breath and a spark of dying energy, he closed his eyes and murmured, "Reunite me with her... anima mea."   
  
He vanished.   
  
  
  
  


=============   
Falling   
=============   
A Card Captor Sakura Fanfiction   
By Dark Rune   


  
  
  
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"Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor;   
for even death is one of the things that Nature wills."   
- Marcus Aurelius Antonius   
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-= Part One: Blind =-   
  
  
On any given Thursday night, twenty-three-year-old Daidouji Tomoyo would usually come home to her penthouse apartment in an upscale part of Tokyo at around eight o'clock. Her neighbors, most of whom were equally young, equally rich, but necessarily arrogant socialites, were consistently out by this time at dance clubs or elite social gatherings. As a result, she had, after almost six years of living there, learned to expect at least some much-needed peace and quiet at home.   
  
So on any given Thursday night, Tomoyo's normal routine consisted of hastily eating some microwaved dinner while listening to news on the radio (8:30), putting finishing touches on the designs of several outfits due Friday (9:00), making and taking phone calls from various co-workers while frantically canceling and rescheduling meetings depending on the deadlines she had to somehow manipulate into postponement (9:45), debating heatedly with the current VP of design because he was an arrogant bastard who only wanted to sleep with her even though she had the power to fire him whenever she wished but didn't because he was such a brilliant businessman (10:30), and, finally, taking a shower followed by a nice, heartfelt crying session, before at last going to bed (11:00 and later).   
  
Anyone else would have probably fallen apart under the amount of stress Tomoyo faced, but she wasn't anyone else. She had lived through her rigorous schedule for the past two years, after she had started Daidouji Designs, a highly successful line of fashionable clothes that had eclipsed even the biggest names in fashion from New York. She wasn't going to fall apart now.   
  
Really, she wasn't.   
  
With a schedule as tight as hers, where she had designated time slots for crying and where she had calculated she could live on five or so hours of sleep anyway, she had no time for falling apart. Especially when she didn't really need contact with other human beings that were sympathetic to her. It wasn't as if they boosted her productivity and creativity anyway.   
  
She wasn't lonely or anything.   
  
Really.   
  
She wasn't.   
  
The phone suddenly rang, jolting Tomoyo out of her thoughts and causing her to jump in shock. Blinking as she shook her head, she belatedly realized that she had been standing in her kitchen for the past five minutes or so, frowning absently at her dinner inside the microwave while her thoughts wandered to today's routine.   
  
She grimaced, ruefully setting the microwave timer as she headed quickly for the attention-starved phone. The likelihood of one of her employees at Daidouji Designs calling was slim because they all knew that bothering her any time before nine o'clock could potentially cost them their lives. Tomoyo figured that the caller would be either her mother or a telemarketer, and it was already hard enough to tell the difference.   
  
Sighing as she reached the living room, she picked up the receiver with the kind of dread reserved especially for snakes and other unpleasant, slithering things, and she remembered to restrain her irritation. Whoever was calling was not the one who caused her stressful life, after all, unless it was that annoying VP. Or a telemarketer.   
  
Then all hell would *really* break loose.   
  
She didn't have a chance to actually say hello into the phone, however, because the moment she put the receiver next to her ear, she was assaulted by a frantic barrage of questions sent by the voice of a young woman that Tomoyo loved very dearly.   
  
"Tomoyo-chan!!! Are you all right? Is everything okay there? You're not hurt are you? Is everyone else doing well? How are you doing?"   
  
Of course, that particular string of questions sounded more like, "TomoyochanAreyouallrightIseverythingokaythereYou'renothurtareyouIseveryoneelsedoingwellHowareyoudoing," and it took all of Tomoyo's self-control not to burst out laughing at the unexpected disruption of her normal routine.   
  
"Sakura-chan?" Tomoyo grinned, feeling strangely relieved and energized just by the sound of Sakura's voice. "Slow down, please. I can't understand a word you're saying. How are you? How is Li-kun?"   
  
Tomoyo heard a deep breath on the other line as well as what sounded like the low, indecipherable rumblings of Li Syaoran's voice, and she smiled. She heard from Sakura and Syaoran, her husband of a little over a year, about once every two weeks, which was actually pretty often considering the Li's were living in Hong Kong and Tomoyo was a very busy woman.   
  
Syaoran had taken over as Clan Leader a year ago, after graduating with a degree in engineering from the University of Tokyo, and he was always busy conducting business deals and negotiating contracts with his associates. Obviously, Syaoran's work required him to live in Hong Kong, so Sakura had not hesitated to go with him. Sakura was, after all, happy being a part time supermodel while furthering her magical studies under the tutelage of Syaoran's mother.   
  
All of them were very busy with their lives, so Tomoyo was surprised to hear from them, especially when they were scheduled to call the next weekend. The Li's were very prompt and polite, knowing that Tomoyo was an equally busy woman who should not be bothered on weekdays, so something almost certainly happened to force them to contact her. Tomoyo bit her lip; whatever it was sounded urgent.   
  
With possible disasters ranging from divorce to Syaoran accidentally murdering Touya-san with a cheap, wooden chopstick nagging her thought processes, Tomoyo tried to keep her stomach from twisting into knots and failed. As long as nobody died and no one was getting a divorce...   
  
"Tomoyo-chan, gomen ne," Sakura, sounding much more in control of herself, apologized, somewhat to Tomoyo's relief. At least Sakura was capable of being coherent, which meant that whatever happened wasn't *too* serious. "Syaoran and I were just wondering how you were doing."   
  
Of course, Tomoyo understood that Sakura was still very, very deeply worried about something, but she was trying to hide it. Her attempt to conceal her worry, however feeble, might have worked if Tomoyo weren't Sakura's best friend of over a decade and if Sakura hadn't already given away the fact that she *was* extremely worried.   
  
"Tell me what's wrong, Sakura-chan," Tomoyo said bluntly, not bothering to mask the concerned, knowing tone in her voice. "Do you need help with something? Is there something wrong with the baby?"   
  
"No, no," Sakura sounded suddenly relieved, and Tomoyo was glad that she had brought up the subject of Sakura's pregnancy to bring her best friend back in focus. "The baby's fine. It's still on track with six months left. But... that's not what's bothering us, Tomoyo-chan."   
  
"Well don't leave me in suspense. I'm perfectly all right *now*," Tomoyo assured them, "but I'd like to know if I won't be all right in the near future."   
  
"It's just that..." Sakura hesitated, and Tomoyo could almost picture the wheels turning in her friend's head. "Syaoran and I sensed something... something terrible. And for once, it's not even after my magic."   
  
Perplexed, Tomoyo pointed out, "Isn't that a good thing?"   
  
"Iie..." Sakura sighed audibly. "It's just that... whatever it is... it's coming after you, Tomoyo-chan. I don't know why, but it's headed specifically in your direction."   
  
Tomoyo was too shocked and too confused to speak. These were her friends, arguably the two most powerful magicians in the world, and she trusted their judgment automatically. Still, she had always been on the outside of the magical circle, the constant observer, so she wasn't used to being so directly... *involved*. Still confused, she opened her mouth, but no words would form in her mind.   
  
Silence prevailed for a few moments, and suddenly the air seemed so much darker.   
  
"Tomoyo-chan?" Sakura's voice sounded faint, distant to Tomoyo's ears. "Are you there? Tomoyo-chan?"   
  
At first she thought she was imagining it, but Tomoyo's vision became gloomy and blurred, thick with darkness and heavy foreboding of some unspeakable evil. She tried moving, but her actions were lethargic as the air fought against her movements. It was as if she was underwater, unable to breathe and desperately grasping for air. Her vision dimmed further, nearing pitch black, as if she were sinking further under an ocean, drowning while the tremendous pressure crushed her lithe form. For some reason, her hands started to hurt badly, and she couldn't remember how she had even injured them in the first place. She was weakening, and she couldn't even feel her knees.   
  
Are my legs still there? she mused absently, forgetting where she was and what she was doing here in this cold, dark place, forgetting Sakura-chan and Li-kun and Daidouji Designs, and bringing her life, her sad, lonely life, into sharp focus.   
  
She struggled to breathe, but she was drowning. She struggled to reach the surface, but something was pulling her down.   
  
It would be so convenient to just close her eyes forever and rest. She needed to rest from all the troubles she was facing. Rest would be good...   
  
"TOMOYO-CHAN!!!" Sakura was screaming frantically into the phone, over and over and over again, sick with worry, and Li-kun's voice echoed in the receiver, strong and clear and equally worried and angry, but Tomoyo couldn't hear them.   
  
In the end, it was the microwave beeping that drew Tomoyo out of her disoriented state. Suddenly she was on alert, hearing every decibel of Sakura's feverish cries and every inflection of Li-kun's angry roar on the phone... which she had somehow dropped on the floor. She couldn't remember when she had dropped it, and she couldn't remember why she was sprawled awkwardly on the floor as well, dizzy and shivering on the cold, unyielding hardwood.   
  
The world was spinning around her, but she managed to focus on the phone on the floor and reached for it as if she were blind.   
  
She sat up slowly, the cordless receiver clutched tightly in her shaky grasp, and then she spoke into it, finally recalling that pregnant women really shouldn't be worried to the extent that she was worrying Sakura, and that powerful men with pregnant wives like Li-kun really shouldn't be worried to the extent she was worrying Li-kun as well. "Sakura-chan, Li-kun, don't worry. I'm... okay. I'm okay. I'm okay."   
  
She repeated that affirmation silently like a mantra, but she wasn't so sure she could so easily convince even herself.   
  
"Kami-sama, Tomoyo-chan, what happened? You weren't speaking for at least a minute. You just cut off in the middle of a sentence, and there was a loud bump, and, and..." Sakura trailed off. Tomoyo could practically see the shuddering breaths the young woman was taking. Tomoyo could almost see the way Li-kun wrapped his arms around her, soothing her, one of his hands moving low over her belly as if he could protect their child as well while offering comfort to her. He was probably shaking too, but he was more composed than his wife who, in her state, was prone to mood swings.   
  
Tomoyo had the grace to wait a few seconds for Sakura's panic to subside. When she was sufficiently calm, Sakura took a deep breath and asked in a collected manner, "What happened? Syaoran was about to call 'Nii-chan to drive over there and see what was wrong with you. We couldn't sense anything, and it really frightened us. It nearly sent me to pieces, Tomoyo-chan."   
  
Tomoyo was touched by their concern, but she couldn't really tell them a lot, as much as she wanted to do so, because she could hardly figure things out for herself.   
  
Grimacing as a sharp pain lanced through her head, Tomoyo wondered if she was coming down with some kind of virus because she had been working herself too hard. She had yet to take a vacation, after all.   
  
"I... I don't know what's wrong. I think I may be catching a bug or something, so don't worry about me," Tomoyo said honestly, a little shaken by her weird experiences, none of which quite fit the symptoms of any normal illness. Given her inability to elaborate any further on her own condition, Tomoyo steered the conversation towards the reason for Sakura and Syaoran's unexpected call. "I don't remember anything. Just that you were saying something about something terrible heading for me?"   
  
"Un," Sakura replied, with some effort to control the concerned sniffs threatening under her calm exterior. "Well, whatever it was appeared about fifteen minutes ago. Something big happened then, but neither of us is sure what it was. It was big enough to affect the Earth's balance of magic, and it's sweeping towards Japan, coming from the East over the Pacific."   
  
"How's the weather in Tokyo, Daidouji-san?" Syaoran suddenly spoke up for the first time. Tomoyo realized that Sakura had probably put her on speaker phone when she had abruptly stopped talking. "And, please, answer me seriously because it's not one of those trivial 'small talk' questions."   
  
Out of both curiosity and deep respect for her friends, Tomoyo glanced out the window and described what she saw. "It's dark. Really dark. And it's freezing outside as well. The skies are covered by storm clouds, and it was raining heavily when I got home. I think it's still pouring. It'll probably turn into a thunderstorm pretty soon."   
  
She was met by a tense silence, and her unease grew steadily. She didn't need to be told that the storm was unnatural, that it was probably the work of a magician with unknown, evil intentions; their silence said it all. But she wanted to be reassured, and she found herself longing for the days when her friends used to sit in front of her, inadvertently allowing her to at least read their expressions and deduce what they were thinking. Using her sharp observation skills, she could always guess from the way they moved and interacted that everything would be all right, that they would be able to handle the situation, and that there was nothing to worry about.   
  
Sakura and Li-kun always were open books to her, but since she was trying to read their minds when she couldn't see them, when she couldn't catch glimmers of hints from their body language and their expressive eyes, she had to take her clues from their voices. And right now, they weren't saying anything remotely helpful for her mental and emotional stability.   
  
"Are your doors locked?" Syaoran pierced the tense silence, but his ominous question only served to darken the mood even more.   
  
"H-Hai," Tomoyo nodded an affirmative reflexively, even though they couldn't see her. "I always lock them."   
  
"Whatever happens, keep the door closed and stay away from your windows. Maybe call a friend to stay over with you, and that might keep you safer," the Li Clan Leader advised, and Tomoyo found herself even more frightened by the seriousness in his tone. A wave of disappointment came over her when she realized that she *had* no friends to invite over, even if she had wanted to anyway.   
  
I would have invited you guys, she thought, and the bitterness in that automatic reaction surprised her.   
  
She had learned more about herself tonight than in the past two years working at her dream job.   
  
"What's going on?" she asked finally, feeling more frustrated than before as a cold chill ran down her back.   
  
"We don't know," Sakura answered grimly, "but we've already booked a flight to Tokyo. We should be there on Saturday. I'm sorry we couldn't be there any earlier, Tomoyo-chan. We don't know how much time you have. You should probably stay with my onii-chan until we get there."   
  
"I'll be fine by myself," Tomoyo insisted, relieved with the knowledge that her friends were coming to protect her. "I'll just wait until you guys get over here. You can stay in one of the extra rooms in my apartment."   
  
"We were actually planning on that," Sakura, sounding considerably more cheerful than before, agreed. "That's the only way we can keep an eye on you, after all."   
  
"It's settled then," Tomoyo said.   
  
"But Tomoyo-chan, I insist that you stay with my 'nii-chan anyway, just for tonight and tomorrow night. I'm sure he and Yukito-san won't mind protecting their honorary little sister, ne? And they don't live too far away from you so you could probably-"   
  
Tomoyo almost missed the flash of distant lightning.   
  
But an instant later, there was silence.   
  
Tomoyo blinked at the phone in her hand for a moment before she nervously decided that the storm had most likely cut the phone lines. To test her theory, she hung up and then picked up the phone again, and the absence of the dial tone confirmed her suspicions.   
  
While she might not have appreciated the fact that the storm cut her connection to her best friends, she *did* appreciate the storm cutting off her employees and that irritating VP from her for the night. She guessed that in that respect, this Thursday might turn out to be better than most.   
  
Somewhat shaken but deciding that there was little else she could do, Tomoyo went back into the kitchen and took her dinner from the microwave, feeling strangely paranoid. She cast furtive glances around her well-lit apartment, unable to squash the sensation that she was being watched but stoutly ignoring it.   
  
Just as she sat down on her couch, mentally debating whether or not she should take her best friends' advice and seek shelter with Touya and Yukito, two knocks on the door effectively interrupted her musings.   
  
She froze.   
  
Syaoran's very serious, very grim advice echoed in her thoughts, and her blood quickly ran cold.   
  
Don't open the door. Whatever you do, don't open the door.   
  
She knew she would anyway.   
  


* * *

  
  
Sakura was sitting on the couch in the living room with her hands over her mouth, unconsciously rocking back and forth. Her emerald eyes flashed with concern and unshed tears of worry, her gaze shifting from the phone sitting on the tea table in front of her, to Syaoran, who was pacing nervously beside her, to the clock on the far wall, and back to the chillingly silent phone once again to repeat the circuit.   
  
Syaoran, for his part, continued his pacing, raking a hand through his unruly chestnut hair several times before he glanced at his watch.   
  
"Syaoran, what if she gets hurt?" she murmured, her intense gaze fixed on the phone. "What if we don't get there in time? What if she doesn't take our advice and runs into something she can't handle?"   
  
He sighed. "We can't do anything. We can't call anyone in that area because of the storm so even if we did want to communicate with your brother, we couldn't."   
  
"But don't you think it's strange that I can't even contact Yue-san?" Sakura asked, finally voicing her deepest concerns. If she wasn't able to even connect with her own guardian, then something was definitely interfering, and interfering with Sakura, the most powerful magician in the world, was a formidable feat that only a strong force could accomplish. Even Syaoran would have difficulty trying it.   
  
"Yeah. That really bothers me, too," her husband growled. He stopped pacing, opting instead to sit beside Sakura so that he could wrap his arm around her shoulders to reassure both of them. "I don't know what to do in this situation. The best we can do is wait to get on that flight to Japan."   
  
Sakura's concern only increased as something else occurred to her. Although she was usually gullible and naïve, she could also be incredibly perceptive at just the right moments. This happened to be one of those moments.   
  
"It's strange that the new private Li jet just happened to break down today, isn't it?" Sakura remarked, and Syaoran only hummed a noncommittal response, not willing to let his wife know that he had also just come to that same, suspicious realization with a growing sense of dread. Whatever was preventing them from going to Japan was undoubtedly powerful and already a step too far ahead. "I think that may be another bad sign," Sakura concluded.   
  
Syaoran tried to downplay the seriousness of what she was suggesting in an effort to reduce the stress she was already feeling. "It could be. But it's probably not a big deal. Don't worry."   
  
"I just feel so... useless sitting here, waiting," Sakura admitted, frustration seeping through her voice. "It's not fair that Tomoyo-chan's the target. She can't defend herself, and we can't defend her from here..."   
  
"Maybe that's the whole point," Syaoran muttered gravely. "Maybe she's being used as leverage against us. I don't know."   
  
Sakura burst into tears, and Syaoran instantly regretted his words. "It's all my fault! If she hadn't known me, she wouldn't be in so much danger..."   
  
Alarmed by his wife's unpredictable outburst, which was an expected development of pregnancy but worried him constantly anyway, Syaoran tightened his embrace around her and kissed her temple gently. "Iie. Don't ever think any of this is your fault, Sakura. We'll just have to find some way to protect her from here, and pray that she takes our advice and seeks refuge with your brother. Even though he is a jerk."   
  
She sniffed. "You're right. But even though he calls me a kaijuu, Onii-chan is *not* a jerk."   
  
He smiled warmly, glad that she had acknowledged his effort to lighten the atmosphere, and he pulled her close so that her head lay against his chest and his chin rested in her hair. For a few minutes, they just held each other, helping each other banish the worries in their hearts and minds.   
  
Suddenly, she spoke again, surprising him just as he started to relax. "I think I know someone who might be able to help."   
  
"Who?" he asked, shooting her a questioning look.   
  
He could feel her smile, and he unconsciously braced himself. "Eriol-kun."   
  
Syaoran flinched out of reflex and too many years of conditioning, and Sakura almost laughed.   
  
Hiiragizawa Eriol had become one of Syaoran's best friends, if not his best guy friend, in high school, and Eriol had even stood as Syaoran's best man at the wedding. But before they were ever on good terms, the damage had already been done to Syaoran's nervous system. It had been too late; now, he just automatically winced whenever he heard Eriol's name.   
  
"If anyone would know how to solve this problem," Sakura was practically beaming, "it would have to be Eriol-kun."   
  
Syaoran flinched again.   
  
But he had to admit, as Sakura reached for the phone, that the idea had merit.   
  


* * *

  
  
When she was younger, Tomoyo mastered several forms of martial arts because her mother had insisted on Tomoyo's possessing the ability to defend herself. Tomoyo had been reluctant at first, being a prim and proper lady, but she eventually found martial arts to be a fun exercise. As with everything else she ever tried, she excelled at the different styles of fighting she had learned.   
  
So even though Tomoyo was scared stiff about whatever lay behind her apartment door, she was confident that although she would inevitably lose against a magician, she could at least go down fighting and leave a lasting, painful mark on her would-be executioner. Tomoyo saw no point in sitting in the living room, cowering in fear while waiting for the enemy to quietly enter her apartment and surprise her, so she immediately took action.   
  
Armed with a short staff that she practiced with regularly, she approached the door, caution apparent in her light footsteps and the loose, but determined set of her shoulders. All rational thoughts were nearly gone from her mind, replaced instead with instinct, finely honed senses, and the overwhelming fear that she might meet her end within the next five minutes.   
  
At last, she stood in front of the door and looked through the peephole, only to find that the hall was too dark--unnaturally so--for her to see anything. Troubled, and well aware that this could be an illusion, Tomoyo raised the staff in her right hand and reached for the doorknob with her left.   
  
"Here we go," she muttered under her breath, her heart racing as shivers ran down her spine.   
  
The moment of truth.   
  
She flung the door open, poised to attack, only to find what she least expected: Hiiragizawa Eriol.   
  
Bloody. Battered. Soaked in sweat and blood and rain. In tattered clothes. Without his glasses.   
  
But the greatest shock of all was the horribly dazed and pained expression on his face and the tears in his unseeing eyes. His dark blue eyes seemed to be gazing blankly into her own, but his sight was truly fixed on a point beyond her, a point infinitely distant from this time and place, and she knew it.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." she murmured hesitantly, all the fear and panic she had felt replaced by horror and sympathy and concern.   
  
He was silent, and his gaze remained blank and blind even as she frantically tried to figure out what she should do next. Then, a genuinely confused look crossed his features as his eyes came into focus and he registered who she was.   
  
A silent moment passed, and then he sobbed. Brokenly.   
  
She had never heard a sound as heartwrenching and sorrowful in her entire life, and she hoped that she never would hear anything like it again. No one deserved that kind of suffering. Instinctively, she reached her arms out towards him, wishing that she could somehow ease his pain.   
  
He fell forward, but she caught him, his cold, drenched, haggard, bone-thin frame landing in the warm circle of her arms, before he fell any further.   
  
She caught him before he could sob again.   
  
She caught him before he shattered.   
  
She caught him.   
  
And her soul wept with his.   
  
  
  
-= End Part One =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: November 21, 2002   
Chapter Finished: November 26, 2002   
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003   
  
Please send all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


	2. Into Darkness

Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal stuff can be found in Part One.   
  
Reviewers: A thousand thanks to the people who reviewed and expressed an interest in seeing the story continued. I must confess I wasn't really sure what to expect from the readers at FF.net. More thanks to the people who were kind enough to immediately make this story one of their favorites. That was very pleasantly surprising! ^_^   
  
Clarifications: Eriol is still young and does not have any children at this point. ^_^ That particular reference was really just a minor detail in the beginning and should be used to gain insight into Eriol's character instead of being taken literally. I'll elaborate further on.   
  
Chapter Warning: This is *the* definitive mind-muddling (to put it lightly) chapter of the story, for both the characters (poor, poor Eriol) and readers. Even so, don't worry about getting confused. I tried not to make this part too messy, and even if it is, it will make sense later. ^_^ Also, the fic, once again, earns its R rating with some repeated bad language in this chapter, but there's nothing worse. Yet. >_   
Enjoy!   
  
~ Dark Rune   
  
  
  
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"One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: love."   
- Sophocles   
--------------------------------------------------------------   
  
  
  
  
-= Part Two: Into Darkness =-   
  
  
His eyes were closed. He was only half-conscious in her arms, shivering profusely, and not entirely because of the cold. Briefly, Tomoyo was stunned, not knowing what to do. It wasn't every day that a friend she hadn't seen in over a year dropped by, looking as if he'd had a violent encounter with both the Shot Card and an unnaturally bad-tempered wild animal. She wasn't sure if the class she took on first aid in high school would be enough to keep Eriol alive, so she hesitated, half-panicked and fearfully insecure about her inadequate ability to help him.   
  
"Hi-Hiiragizawa-kun?" she whispered, overwhelmed by his scent and his warmth and his weight in her arms, all mingled inextricably with blood, sweat, magic, and indescribable sadness. That very masculine combination was indescribably and inappropriately *attractive* all of a sudden, and Tomoyo felt her judgment abruptly clouded by light-headed, but not altogether unpleasant, confusion. It had been so long since she had even touched another human being. Too long.   
  
She hesitated for an instant longer until the urgency of the situation finally sank in. She shook her head.   
  
This was Hiiragizawa-kun.   
  
And he was hurt.   
  
Bleeding.   
  
*Badly*.   
  
'So what in the world are you waiting for? Just do SOMETHING!' her rational side yelled at her. 'Get him to a HOSPITAL!'   
  
In that moment of sudden clarity, she reacted, blindly moving to help however she could while her logical mind screamed to get him to a doctor.   
  
*Notyetnotyetnotyetnotyet* was her unexpected response to the natural urge to just stuff Eriol into her car and take him to the hospital, traffic lights and pedestrians be damned. Something from the depths of her soul warned her, loudly and stubbornly, that if she tried to get him to a hospital, both of them would end up dead. It reminded her that an unknown danger lurked somewhere in the city, and Tomoyo would be better off not leading them to it.   
  
Having no intention to take them both to their slaughter, she figured they should go to the hospital tomorrow. Or maybe they could go on Saturday, when Sakura-chan and Li-kun arrived to watch out for them. After all, daylight was not a guarantee that they would be any safer from a danger that she could not sense. At the moment, they really needed Sakura and Syaoran, and Tomoyo found herself almost fuming at the thought.   
  
For the first time in her life, Tomoyo inwardly cursed herself for not having any magical sensitivity at all.   
  
Staggering under Eriol's weight, she half-dragged, half-carried the young man towards her living room couch, vaguely remembering to shut the door behind her with her foot. Sakura and Syaoran's warnings still echoed in the recesses of her mind, and Tomoyo guessed that whatever evil they had warned her against had gotten to Eriol first. She had little doubt that it would go after her if given the chance, and she knew she would not survive a confrontation with it. After all, if Hiiragizawa-kun was this badly beaten, what chance did she have?   
  
Steering her mind away from discouragingly morbid thoughts, she deposited Eriol on the couch and took a second to assess his ailing condition.   
  
In spite of her already light complexion, she paled.   
  
His face was most noticeably bruised and somewhat singed on his right side, enhancing the already numerous cuts on his cheeks and lower lip. A long gash ran down diagonally from his hairline above his left eye, across his forehead, to end just above his right eyebrow, and it bled freely down his face and neck. He looked as if he had just barely made it back from the front lines of a brutal war, and suddenly Tomoyo wondered if that comparison to war was actually more apt than she had first imagined.   
  
To her growing dismay, she found that the bloody gash on his head was the least of his injuries as she quickly surveyed his battered appearance. His dark blue, button-down shirt was shredded and clung loosely to his lean form, sporting several dark patches of blood. His black jeans were dirty and torn up in several places, with part of the lower right pant leg ripped off, revealing a large gash on his calf and more cuts and bruises down his shin. His right side had taken the brunt of the damage, she realized, noticing the unevenness of his wounds.   
  
Worse still, his whole body began shivering violently, and his face was rapidly turning an alarming shade of blue. Tomoyo guessed that he was probably suffering from internal injuries that she could not see or treat, although those injuries needed as much—if not more—attention.   
  
Trying to stay calm, she decided it was important to get him warm and dry first; it wouldn't help if she patched him up only so he could die of pneumonia a day later. In the instant it took her to check over him, she devised a plan, as any calm, rational business executive would.   
  
And in the next second, she was executing her plan, in spite of how rapidly her mind was unraveling.   
  
She sprinted to her room to fetch towels and blankets, pausing a split-second only to turn up the apartment heater as far as it would go, and then she headed back for her unexpected visitor. Although a thousand questions raced through her mind as she reached his side, she had to ignore her nagging curiosity and her fear of the unknown.   
  
Eriol's ailing health was the only thing that mattered now. He was getting worse by the second, and she had little time to spare.   
  
'Sakura-chan, Li-kun, I wish you were both here,' she thought desperately to herself. They always knew what to do. They'd been faced with life-threatening situations before. They had seen the edge of life and death before. They were used to it. It was their life; they were *more* than used to it.   
  
She wasn't.   
  
Swiftly, she dried Eriol with a towel as best as she could, knowing that she needed to get him out of his wet clothes as soon as humanly possible. She definitely did not like the current color of his face or the way he was shivering, as if he were suffering from a seizure. Deciding that modesty was useless in a life-threatening situation, Tomoyo began to peel the tattered clothes off his shivering form, wincing as the cloth stuck to the bleeding wounds on his torso.   
  
"What monster could have done this to you?" she murmured angrily. She trembled as the nausea rose in her chest, feeling more sickened as she discovered more vicious cuts and bruises on his skin. Through gritted teeth, she asked, softly, without really expecting an answer, "What happened to you, Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  
So she was startled when he finally said something, as if in response to her question. His deep voice was so quiet that she almost didn't hear him, but it conveyed his suffering with piercing, emotional clarity.   
  
"Kaho..."   
  
Tomoyo nearly froze. Only her frantic mind reminding her to GET ERIOL WARM NOW kept her going at a breakneck pace of drying and undressing him. But what Eriol said next, in his quiet delirium, could have stopped time.   
  
"You can't be..."   
  
Forgetting the world, and forgetting time, she paused, her eyes searching his face. A hopeful question escaped her lips. "Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  
"You can't... be... dead..."   
  
A lump formed in her throat, and it took all of Tomoyo's strength not to cry for him. In the end, she wouldn't have any strength left for herself.   
  


* * *

  
  
He remembered. The stars were so beautiful that night. The glittering sky was an invitation to explore other worlds, to peer into the farthest reaches of the universe. And he knew that even if he went exploring and lost himself in a world far away, he could always return home.   
  
"Kaho?"   
  
She was his anchor, after all.   
  
She had smiled a brilliant smile, and he had been so happy then. Only now did he realize, with a pang of regret, that her smile was not one of happiness. Not really. Not completely.   
  
"Yes?"   
  
She was his first love.   
  
Over the years, they had drifted apart, coming back to each other after several separations only to push each other away again. They were doomed to repeat the cycle because they had been trapped in that infinitely long dance of separation and reunion, a dance he had lacked the courage to end.   
  
The first time they separated, he thought they had agreed to wait for him to grow up.   
  
At the second break up, he believed they had agreed to wait for him to discover who he was.   
  
Later on, he had conceded that they needed to give each other space because they had lived with each other for almost ten years.   
  
But regardless of the cause, there was just always something in the way, and he couldn't even remember half of the other reasons for their damned dance. Still, he had believed it was a dance that only tested and strengthened their loved.   
  
He had finally sought to end their dance, happily, that night. She was his first love--his only love, as far as he was concerned. No matter how each of them tried to pull away, they inevitably returned to each other once more.   
  
"Aishiteru, Kaho."   
  
She had smiled again, and only now did he realize that her smile wasn't as utterly benign and beautiful and loving as he had blindly fantasized for so long. Perhaps her smile had even been one of pity, but Kaho was a very gentle person, and she knew well enough to hide hurtful words and actions and expressions from him until it was time to repeat their painful dance once again.   
  
Besides, even if they hurt each other now, they were doomed to fall back in love again. She would always pull him back.   
  
"I know."   
  
Her jarringly impersonal answer to his meaningful declaration of love should have unnerved him, but he had dismissed it. A young man's fancy had blinded him in bliss and romantic ideals, and he had thought it was great that they were so in love that they could read each other's minds.   
  
He had thought he could surprise her.   
  
"Marry me?"   
  
And he had found himself kneeling.   
  
Down on both knees instead of just one, in the garden behind his mansion. Rejected. Confused. Weeping.   
  
"You'll understand later, Eriol."   
  
She had smiled again before she hurriedly left him in tears, and he understood now that her smile was not out of love, or a promise of things yet to come, or even just a simple request for more time to breathe. For him, nothing was that ordinary.   
  
But because they were soulmates, he knew that they had just begun their next dance, and he would muster the courage to ask his question a second time as soon as this cycle was over.   
  
After all, they were soulmates. Soulmates could not escape their destiny. He refused to abandon his destiny.   
  


* * *

  
  
I'm drowning. It's dark. It sounds like it's raining outside. And I'm suffocating.   
  
"Kaho?"   
  
I remember a spell. Cast in a duel a long time ago. But it wasn't my life, and it didn't hurt me then because I didn't know how to love, but it's hurting me now. It has already hurt my other self before. I don't want it to hurt me. It's not fair.   
  
Now I can't feel anything but pain. My limbs feel numb. I'm sore all over. My chest hurts with every breath I take, and I wish I could just stop breathing to stop the pain and be with you.   
  
This isn't what rebirth is supposed to feel like.   
  
"Yes?"   
  
Something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. I couldn't save you, and that's why I cast that last spell. So I could be reunited with you. Why didn't my last spell work?   
  
"Aishiteru, Kaho."   
  
Why am I not with you? Where are you?   
  
"I know."   
  
I can't see you. I'm lost.   
  
"Marry me?"   
  
Or... are you still alive, after all?   
  
"You'll understand later, Eriol."   
  
I'm so tired... it's so hard to breathe. What am I supposed to understand? How can I understand if half of my heart and half of my soul are no longer with me? I can't. I don't understand. I don't want to understand. Why didn't my last spell work?   
  
Please help me, Kaho.   
  
"You silly boy. Your spell *did* work."   
  


* * *

  
  
Those last words in his hazy half-dream were spoken by a deep, gentle voice, filled with mocking, yet sorrow-filled arrogance, pity, and distant understanding, and he knew that it spoke the truth. It belonged to a man who knew things past, present, and future.   
  
The voice, after all, was his own.   
  
He became aware that he could hear someone crying, and he was deeply startled to find out that the person crying was, in fact, himself.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Kaho?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
A pause.   
  
"Aishiteru, Kaho."   
  
A smile.   
  
"I know."   
  
Hesitation. Fear.   
  
"Marry me?"   
  
An eternity. A sigh.   
  
Then, "I'm sorry."   
  
Hurt. Confusion. An unasked question hanging in the silence.   
  
"You'll understand later, Eriol."   
  
His knees hurt that night.   
  


* * *

  
  
The warmth was comforting in its familiarity, and the softness beneath him relaxed his senses, but this wasn't at all what he had expected. This wasn't exactly how he remembered death and rebirth... but then again, perhaps his memories from Clow's life were simply fading with time.   
  
His situation confused him, for he had believed that the last spell he had cast would surely kill him, or at least bring him into the next life as painlessly as possible. He didn't know whether he should be overjoyed or disappointed.   
  
Was he even dead?   
  
Still groggy, his mind inexplicably weary, he tried to move, and all at once a thousand sharp pains shot through his body, coursing through his aching muscles and the now familiar wounds inflicted upon him. He groaned involuntarily as he discovered how difficult it was to breathe, and he instantly gave up trying to move.   
  
Just lying down hurts, he thought miserably, but at least the horrible pain proved that he was still alive--he just wasn't doing very well.   
  
In spite of his hazy mental state, an uplifting thought occurred to him.   
  
If I'm still alive, he wondered, his mind fighting off sluggishness, then... does this mean she's still alive?   
  
Energized by the possibility, he willed his eyes to open, overcoming the powerful urge to rest in the comfort of darkness and slumber.   
  
"Kaho?" he managed to whisper, even though his throat was parched and a throbbing headache nearly blinded his senses. He couldn't see very well; everything was dark and blurred. It took him a moment to realize that there was little light wherever he was--had the sun even risen yet?--and that he was not wearing his glasses.   
  
"Kaho?" he whispered again, absently wondering if he sounded as pathetic as he felt. He reached out his hand from underneath the comfortable blankets that had been, mysteriously enough, piled on his body, and he grasped air for a split second until his hand caught someone else's. The hand that held his was soft, warm, and gentle, caressing his with a tenderness he thought he would never feel again. He felt another hand brush his face lightly, stroking his cheek and brushing his dark bangs away from his face with a quiet, loving intensity.   
  
He was safe.   
  
He gave in to his fatigue, closing his eyes once more, and a contented smile crossed his features. "You're safe... I... found you... Kaho."   
  
He would be severely disappointed.   
  


* * *

  
  
Daidouji Designs was alive with chatter that Friday morning. Everyone was discussing the events of the night before. A violent storm, strangely enough, had been so focused on a relatively small area in upscale Tokyo that it had meteorologists everywhere scratching their heads in confusion.   
  
It was like magic.   
  
But what fed the chatter more was the fact that the company's CEO was very conspicuously absent after about two years of almost continuous work. Deadlines were extended. Meetings were rescheduled. Presentations were set aside. The higher-ranking executives, in their panic, almost thought they should restructure the company to take into account their leader's very unusual absence.   
  
Daidouji Tomoyo had called early that morning to leave one of her VPs in charge, saying that she was taking a sick day.   
  
It was as if she had decided to quit; the news was *that* unexpected.   
  
People immediately deduced that she was, in fact, not sick, because Daidouji Tomoyo would have gone to work even if she was suffering from an insidious collection of near-fatal illnesses. People understood that Daidouji Tomoyo would skip work only for a deeply personal matter, and whatever it was worried the people closest to her, knowing that it must be something incredibly urgent.   
  
Still, they realized that the short break was good for their beloved, yet stubbornly aloof CEO to get some time to herself. She needed to take a break from a hectic schedule that none of them could even begin to handle, and they were relieved.   
  
As the day wore on, with no sign of Tomoyo showing up on a surprise inspection, people began to mischievously speculate that their highly respected and impossibly distant leader had actually fallen in love with a dark stranger on the night of the mysterious storm, and so she had devoted the entire weekend to "adjusting" to her new priorities.   
  
People laughed. They figured she might as well take the weeks of vacation she had accumulated because she had actually left the company incredibly well run, like a flawless, self-oiling machine. The sheer number of designs that Tomoyo had already finished could sustain the company for months to come, and Tomoyo had some of the world's best designers working for her if they were to run out of products, which was already highly unlikely. Thus, Daidouji Designs survived the first day of Tomoyo's absence.   
  
But her first absent day never hinted at the tumultuous weeks that would follow.   
  


* * *

  
  
Tomoyo awoke at precisely five o'clock in the morning out of habit, but her unfamiliar resting position in a chair, half draped over her own bed and with her hand clutching someone else's, severely disoriented her. The unusually high temperature in her apartment added to the bleary-eyed young woman's confusion momentarily until the events of the night before came back to her in a rush of memory.   
  
A magic storm.   
  
A flash of lightning.   
  
Evil.   
  
Blood.   
  
Sorrow penetrating her soul.   
  
And tears flowing throughout the night.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun!"   
  
Her eyes widened, all traces of slumber within them banished in a mixture of panic and alertness. Abruptly she sat up and immediately looked at her wounded visitor, noting with some relief that a tinge of color had returned to his cheeks. He wasn't shivering, and that comforted Tomoyo, who had kept a night-long vigil at his side. She had worried over his near-constant shivering for hours and had even stacked almost all the blankets she owned on him to keep him warm.   
  
Hiiragizawa-kun was her good friend, after all. She loved him as much as she loved Sakura-chan and Li-kun, and she wouldn't have reacted any differently if they had been in the same position. That was why she was so concerned. Tomoyo realized that he was going through a terrible ordeal, and she wished desperately that she could somehow share some of his pain to lift the burden from his shoulders. Until he awoke, however, she could do nothing more to help.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun," she murmured, and her initial panic faded away as she held his hand.   
  
Upon closer inspection, she saw that his external injuries didn't really seem that bad anymore. The cuts and bruises on his face had faded quickly, much sooner than they would have on an average person. Tomoyo guessed that his body probably healed faster because he was such a powerful magician, and she was comforted by the idea that he could pull himself out of his critical condition. She did worry, however, about the emotional devastation that Eriol would probably be suffering, if his delirious words uttered the night before were any indication.   
  
Deciding that he was going to be fine physically, Tomoyo rose from her seat, grimacing when her body ached in response to her standing up. She had never slept in such an awkward sitting position before, and her stiff body grudgingly reminded her never to do so again.   
  
She would have groaned, but a faint movement and a slight moan from Eriol quickly removed all thoughts of complaint from Tomoyo's mind. As she turned to face him, she held her breath, wondering if he would wake up, and her heart raced when she saw his lips try to form a word. He tried again, and again, but sound refused to come out. Undaunted even in his exhaustion, he tried one more time, and this time, she heard his whisper.   
  
"Kaho?"   
  
His voice was weak, but the pleading tone was strong and clear. When he opened his eyes at last, Tomoyo almost gasped. His eyes remained a beautifully intense shade of dark blue, and his power shone through them, especially without his glasses to hold it all back. Tomoyo was mesmerized.   
  
"Kaho?" he whispered again, in a slightly stronger voice. He shifted under the sheets, his hand reaching blindly, desperately, for something that Tomoyo knew he could not attain.   
  
She took his hand in hers, gently so that she would not startle him, and, almost of its own accord, her other hand lifted up to soothingly stroke his face.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." she smiled warmly at him, even though she knew he did not see her and even though she felt his misery.   
  
His unseeing eyes drifted closed once more, and he smiled in peaceful slumber.   
  


* * *

  
  
Eriol awoke to the mouthwatering smell of bacon, eggs, and potatoes. Even through the haze of pain surrounding his entire body, the delicious aroma reminded him that he was actually famished, and in response to the stimulating scent, he moved to sit up. His aching body, however, protested violently against any form of movement, and so it took him a few seconds of pained exertion to actually push the mountain of blankets off his upper body and get up to a sitting position.   
  
He felt terrible.   
  
A hundred hangovers put together couldn't even begin to describe his headache, and a hundred beatings put together couldn't even compare to his physical injuries.   
  
Blinking wearily, he looked around at his unfamiliar surroundings and wondered what exactly had happened. He could have sworn that Kaho was somewhere around here; no other person in the world could possibly make him feel this safe. Yet as he looked around the room, he acknowledged that he might have been mistaken about Kaho's presence after all. The room was decorated in a uniquely fashionable, modern style, boasting metallic edges and dark, solid, professional colors, lacking the flowery curtains, embellished antique furniture, and pale bedsheets that Kaho had always favored.   
  
Kaho *had* always? he suddenly thought, asking himself why he felt so... resigned... to think of Kaho in the past tense. It sent a shiver down his spine. What the hell was going on?   
  
He cleared his throat and called out a name that, he suddenly felt, he had been calling in vain far too much for far too long. "Kaho?"   
  
He looked around, feeling a bit dazed. His vision was only slightly unclear because he was missing his glasses, but he had never truly needed to wear glasses in the first place. He had worn them more out of habit and, he admitted only to himself, an overwhelming, inexplicable desire to hide his face.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun?" a woman's quiet, inquiring voice drifted from somewhere outside the bedroom. Trying to figure out whose voice it was, he turned to the open doorway.   
  
"Who..." Eriol's question trailed off when he spotted Daidouji Tomoyo standing in the doorway, holding a tray of food, tea, and orange juice. She was dressed in black designer jeans and a navy, turtleneck cashmere sweater, a simple yet sophisticated outfit contrasting with the homely picture she made with the tray in her hands.   
  
"Ohayou gozaimasu, Hiiragizawa-kun," she greeted him pleasantly, although he could sense the guarded tone in her voice, almost as if she were in pain herself.   
  
She practically floated towards him, so gracefully did she walk, and Eriol found himself irresistibly drawn to her. He wondered if she could feel that strange... tension... in the air, and he wondered if she knew why it was there.   
  
Was this magic?   
  
"Please eat something," she urged, making him feel discomfort at his own lack of response to her polite morning greeting. "You were badly injured, and you need to get your strength back."   
  
"Daidouji-san?" he blinked, confused, and unable to remember what exactly was going on and how he had arrived at her apartment.   
  
Badly injured? he mulled over her words. That would certainly explain why I'm hurting all over.   
  
He ventured to ask a simple question, knowing very well that he might not be strong enough to hear the answer, but still curious anyway. He was tired, and he felt sad, even though he couldn't explain anything. "Would you kindly tell me what's going on, Daidouji-san?"   
  
She smiled slightly, and he noticed that her smile was comparable to one of Kaho's smiles. It was a smile that held a mixture of love and pity.   
  
Eriol hurriedly shrugged off the horrible thought.   
  
She set the tray beside him on the bed, and only then did Eriol realize that her face was faintly tinged with red. She was discreetly trying to avoid looking directly at him, opting instead to stare at the tray of food.   
  
Wait. The unflappable Daidouji-san was blushing?   
  
Was it something he had done?   
  
He looked down at himself, and instantly he fought the urge to just crawl under a rock and die.   
  
Simply put, he was *naked*.   
  
In front of Daidouji-san, his highly respected childhood friend and a leading global businesswoman and designer, no less.   
  
Save for a few bandages around his chest, his arms, and his head, along with the bandages that he could feel wrapped around his legs, he was devoid of any clothing that could offer some modesty. At least he had blankets over him. His face flaming, Eriol tried to pull the blankets higher around his waist without drawing much attention to his movements.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, I'm not sure what happened to you, but you showed up last night at my doorstep, badly injured and practically incoherent," Tomoyo explained, averting her eyes with the amazing tact and grace that only Daidouji Tomoyo possessed.   
  
Eriol relaxed, glad that Daidouji-san had such well developed social skills that she was able to turn a potentially embarrassing situation into something trivial. And then he came to the conclusion that *she* was probably the one who had undressed him in the first place, so he tensed up once more. His blush deepened even as he listened to her story. Somehow, the physical pain he was suffering dulled in the wake of his embarrassment, but he still wasn't sure whether he preferred that burning shame or his aching limbs.   
  
He would probably rather suffer physically, especially in front of Tomoyo, someone he respected and admired greatly.   
  
"Before you got here, however," Tomoyo continued her explanation, managing a respectably stable tone of voice although he could see that she was still red-faced, "Sakura-chan and Li-kun called me from Hong Kong, warning me that something evil was coming to Tokyo. It was something strong enough to affect the Earth's magical balance, and strangely enough, it was coming for me. That's why Sakura-chan and Li-kun are returning to Japan tomorrow. To protect me."   
  
All thoughts of modesty left Eriol, and he straightened, regarding Tomoyo seriously. He was aware that focusing so intensely on Tomoyo made her cheeks flush a darker crimson, but both of them pushed such insignificant matters aside, knowing that this discussion was important.   
  
"I don't understand," Eriol frowned as a strange possibility occurred to him. "I don't remember very much, but... you don't think *I'm* that evil thing Sakura-san was warning you about, do you?"   
  
"Of course not," Tomoyo quickly shook her head, and her faith in him strengthened his own resolve. "I think that whatever that evil was got to you, first. There's no other explanation as to why you're so badly beaten up."   
  
"That would make sense," Eriol muttered, trying to think back to the events of the night before but becoming frustrated as he mentally came up against a blank, white wall. It was almost as if someone was trying to stop him from remembering what had happened. He sighed. "I just can't recall how I got here or why I'm even here. I suppose I must have sensed that evil from England and immediately came here to try to stop it..."   
  
"But if that were true, Hiiragizawa-kun," Tomoyo interjected quietly, her calm voice betraying the sense of foreboding rising in her chest, "if you really were coming here to protect me and to fight this evil, then where are Akizuki-san and Spinel-san?"   
  
Eriol froze.   
  
Almost as an afterthought, as if she didn't want him to hear, Tomoyo added softly, "And where is Mizuki-sensei?"   
  
Daidouji-san was right.   
  
Where were they?   
  
And where was Kaho?   
  
"I... I don't know. It really wouldn't make sense for me to fight something this big without my guardians," Eriol agreed, his deepening frown darkening his features. He closed his eyes, intent on mentally seeking out his creations. He had created them, so he could always sense them and communicate with them telepathically, but his mental efforts were met again by a blank wall--the same white wall that had obscured his memory only moments before.   
  
He knew he was beginning to panic, and he hated it.   
  
He hated staring uselessly at that blank wall, and he was quickly learning to dread what that mysterious blank wall in his mind truly signified.   
  
"I don't understand," he muttered, becoming increasingly agitated as he searched within his mind and consistently found blank walls in his memory and in his senses. He willed himself to discover something. Any sign of his creations, his loved ones, would be good enough for him.   
  
Ruby Moon?   
  
In the infinite expanse of the mental plane, he found a white wall blocking his avenue to his guardian. Frustrated, he started another search.   
  
Spinel Sun?   
  
He discovered the same, impenetrable wall. Annoyed, but more worried than ever before, Eriol tried a different approach.   
  
What happened last night?   
  
Again, he faced that white barrier, and he found his fear growing exponentially. This was not something he could be annoyed about; this was serious.   
  
He almost didn't want to ask the next question.   
  
Kaho?   
  
Once more, he discovered nothing. The white wall brought his search to a halt.   
  
Ruby Moon?   
  
A wall.   
  
He was becoming desperate.   
  
Spinel?   
  
A wall.   
  
His heartbeat was racing.   
  
Memories?   
  
A wall.   
  
His head was hurting so much that he couldn't think straight.   
  
Evil?   
  
A wall.   
  
He paused, feeling a chill run down his spine.   
  
This can't be happening.   
  
It can't be.   
  
Kaho?   
  
With shockingly cold finality, a solid wall blocked his path. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out to someone. He wanted to hurt something, break something. He had never felt so helpless, so unbelievably clueless, about anything in his entire life, and because it concerned the people he valued the most, he felt even more frustrated.   
  
He was frightened.   
  
Kaho?   
  
The wall remained unmoved.   
  
Ruby Moon?   
  
Another wall refused to give in to his tears.   
  
Spinel?   
  
The wall mocked his frustration, his sharply growing fear.   
  
Memories?   
  
The wall withstood the furious pounding of his fists. It resisted his screams.   
  
Where was everything?   
  
Why couldn't he find anything?   
  
Where was everyone?   
  
Why the hell couldn't he find anything?   
  
"KAHOOO!!!"   
  
It wouldn't move. It just wouldn't give. Even his magic didn't work. His sobs were futile.   
  
Shit. Shit. Shit.   
  
KAHOOOO!!!   
  
He was angrily punching the wall, trying to break it, but his only rewards were bloodied knuckles.   
  
*Shit*.   
  
KAHO!   
  
He was getting so tired again, and he wanted to rest, but he needed that wall out of the way.   
  
Shit.   
  
Kaho...   
  
What kind of magic was this? Why couldn't he remove the wall?   
  
Kaho...   
  
She was... smiling?   
  
What was she saying?   
  
He would understand *what*?   
  
And then someone else-—not Kaho-—was speaking to him.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun! Hiiragizawa-kun... Calm down! Stop fighting me... Hiiragizawa-kun! Hiiragizawa-kun... Onegai... Hiiragizawa-kun. Hiiragizawa-kun. Onegai."   
  


* * *

  
  
That voice gently repeating his name broke into his thoughts. He remembered the last time he had heard it at the wedding of his son and daughter over a year ago.   
  
So where the hell was he?   
  
Where...?   
  
That wall!   
  
*Shit*.   
  
Why wouldn't the wall break down?   
  
Why wouldn't it break?   
  
Why couldn't he get it to break?   
  
It was all his fault. His fault. His fault. His fault.   
  
Someone was dead.   
  
His fault. His fault. His fault.   
  
His fault.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun! Onegai..."   
  
Eriol opened his eyes.   
  
He was shocked to discover that his face was streaked with tears and his body was convulsing in unstoppable sobs. He was breathing raggedly, as if he had just run a very great distance, and he belatedly realized that he was wrapped in Daidouji-san's warm embrace. She was trying to soothe him, to calm him down, and he was crying desperately into her shoulder because he could not break down the white walls in his mind. Her soft hands glided gently across his bare back, seeking to comfort him even as she tried to understand what was happening to him.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, onegai," she whispered brokenly, her breath warm next to his ear. Her grip on him tightened, and he didn't realize that she might have been crying or that she might have been in pain. "Calm down. Tell me. Onegai. I can feel your pain, but how can I help you?"   
  
He thought he heard a strange sadness in her voice, and he also thought it was most unbecoming on someone as wonderful and beautiful as Daidouji-san.   
  
"I... I..." he couldn't fit the words between his gasps, so he buried his face into her warm shoulder, his arms fitting around her slim waist so perfectly that he thought, just for a moment, that she might be Kaho. She made him feel so safe--even safer?--that he thought she could be Kaho.   
  
But her smell was different. It was intoxicating, alluring, unbelievably sweet and unbelievably arousing, but not Kaho.   
  
Not Kaho.   
  
Not Kaho.   
  
Not Kaho.   
  
"Gomen nasai, Hiiragizawa-kun. I know I'm not her," Daidouji-san suddenly whispered against his cheek, accidentally teasing him with the slight brush of her lips. Unmindful of the thrill that the contact of her lips on his skin caused, he wondered how she had read his mind. "You are my good friend," she said kindly, warmly, and Eriol, in between his shuddering breaths, couldn't help but pull her closer to him. "And I do love you. I want to help you find Mizuki-sensei."   
  
He failed to notice that breakfast, now cold, had spilled on the floor.   
  
He didn't realize that an hour had elapsed since the time he woke up and the time he found himself sobbing in Daidouji Tomoyo's careful, caring embrace.   
  
He didn't see the scratches on Tomoyo's face and arms, scratches that his own angrily flailing body had caused during his inexplicable lapse into the depths of his own mind.   
  
He didn't know there were unshed tears in her eyes because he couldn't see the sadness and sympathy and love etched in her face.   
  
She was worried.   
  
Hiiragizawa-kun was, after all, someone she loved because he was a very close, very dear friend. In fact, she loved him as much as she loved Li-kun.   
  
As much as she loved Sakura-chan.   
  
But if she really loved him as much as she did her other close friends, then how come she could literally *feel* his emotional and physical suffering?   
  
Through a haze of despair and pain, Tomoyo wondered.   
  
And because of that haze of despair and pain, they fell asleep in each other's arms.   
  


* * *

  
  
Sakura and Syaoran had tried calling England about fifty times on Thursday night before they finally gave up. The phone always rang, which indicated that there were no severe weather problems that could have been caused by dark magic in London, but strangely enough, no one ever answered. Sakura and Syaoran had even resorted to e-mail and instant messaging, trying to hunt for anyone living in Eriol's mansion, but they received no response from any of their old friends.   
  
Deciding that they would try calling again the next day, the Li's had retired for the night, still very concerned about Tomoyo's situation. It was no surprise to Syaoran that Sakura was up uncharacteristically *early* and was already calling the Hiiragizawa residence by the time he had fixed himself his daily mug of hot chocolate. Sakura quickly explained that since there was still no connection to Tokyo, she had once again resorted to trying to talk to Eriol.   
  
While Sakura had a cheerfully optimistic personality, even this was getting on her nerves.   
  
She sighed.   
  
"Still no response. And I really don't understand why Eriol-kun doesn't even have an answering machine," Sakura, with the cordless receiver held next to her ear, bit her lip.   
  
"Guess we just have to try again," he shrugged tensely, sitting next to his wife on the couch. He moved to press the speaker phone button, and he pressed the redial button just as Sakura replaced the receiver back into its cradle.   
  
The ringing on the other end made them both unusually nervous, though neither of them could fully understand why.   
  
But really they were expecting no response.   
  
After so many attempts to contact Eriol the night before, Sakura and Syaoran were conditioned to expect that lack of response. Naturally, when they heard a sudden click on the other line, they were startled to the point where Syaoran almost spilled his drink and Sakura jumped a few centimeters in her seat.   
  
Without thinking or waiting for a speaker on the other side, both of them asked, in tense unison, "May we please speak to Hiiragizawa Eriol?"   
  
A long silence followed, and Sakura and Syaoran unknowingly held their breaths.   
  
"Eriol-sama..." a familiar voice said faintly. "Tomoyo-chan..."   
  
It took a split second for that voice to register in their minds.   
  
"Akizuki-san!" Syaoran cried out in recognition, and he would have demanded to speak to Eriol if Sakura hadn't quickly grasped his arm and held him back with a slight, serious shake of her head.   
  
Syaoran's eyes widened in understanding. The muted words of the normally upbeat Akizuki Nakuru had made Sakura instantly realize that something was very, very wrong in England, and they needed to know what was wrong before they dived deeper into whatever that mess was.   
  
"What is it, Nakuru-san? What about Eriol-kun and Tomoyo-chan?" Sakura asked gently, her tone contrasting with the grave look on her face and the worry lines forming over her brow.   
  
"Eriol-sama..." Nakuru repeated, almost as if she were drugged, and Syaoran found himself clenching his fists so tightly that his palm nearly bled. "Tomoyo-chan... Mizuki-san..."   
  
Nakuru chuckled, and neither Sakura nor Syaoran mistook that chuckle as a sign of mirth.   
  
It was a laugh that reeked of bitterness.   
  
"Mizuki-san. Mizuki-san... She's dead."   
  
Sakura and Syaoran were horrified.   
  
"She's dead," Nakuru said again, faintly and in a flat tone of voice, and they could hear her sobbing even more. "She wasn't really my favorite person, and she hurt Eriol-sama a lot without meaning to, but she was a kind person. Good to everyone. But now she's dead. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead."   
  
"Nakuru-san, where's Eriol-kun?" Sakura asked, desperately now, as she clutched the edges of her seat in a bone-crunching grip. "Nakuru-san?"   
  
"She's dead," Nakuru echoed again, before a final series of sobs escaped her lips. "Please stop him. Sakura-chan, Syaoran-kun. Please stop him. Please stop him. Please stop him. Tomoyo-chan's next. Please, please, please stop him. Tomoyo-chan's next. Please stop him. Tomoyo-chan's--"   
  
The dial tone was distractingly harsh.   
  
  
  
-= End Part Two =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: November 28, 2002   
Chapter Finished: December 14, 2002   
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003   
  
  
End Notes:   
I really didn't think I needed translations, given that I don't really use that much Japanese, and that CCS, like most anime, has a Japanese-oriented fandom (the abomination dubbed "Cardcaptors" does NOT exist, dagnammit! "Showron" is NOT a family name! Nelvana morons... ). Still, here's a list of Japanese terms that should come in handy wherever you go. ^_^   
  
~~ Japanese Translations ~~   
-kun – familiar suffix for a male friend (usually)   
-chan – familiar suffix for a female friend, usually used for/by young girls   
-sama – respectful suffix for someone of great importance or high ranking (e.g. royalty)   
-san – generally respectful suffix   
-sensei – suffix for teachers   
aishiteru – I love you   
gomen nasai – sorry (polite)   
ohayou gosaimasu – good morning (polite)   
onegai – please   
  
  
Please review and direct all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


	3. Through the Past

Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal stuff can be found on Part One.   
  
Reviewers:   
Many thanks to all the people who kindly reviewed my work. You all kept me going when I felt like giving up... even though I was supposed to study for my finals. Heh. ^_^;;   
  
I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to the people who reviewed twice: The Great One, KyteAura, Princess Aiko, dynast, Athar_Luna, and Ruby-servantof-eli!   
  
Last, but not least, special thanks go to Athar_Luna for noticing how incredibly long my chapters are compared to standard FF.net fics! I'm glad all the work I put into writing hasn't gone *totally* unnoticed! ^_^   
  
Author's Notes:   
By far, this was the most difficult chapter to write because there was so much background I needed to write about. This chapter required countless frustrating nights of sitting and staring blankly at my laptop, so I appreciate your patience, and I would even more greatly appreciate your feedback. Enjoy!   
  
~ Dark Rune   
  
  
  
--------------------------------------------   
"Tell me about the angels in heaven.   
Tell me about the clouds in the sky.   
Tell me about the scent of love and passion.   
I want to know the secrets of life.   
I want to know."   
~ Jupiter Prime, "Secrets of Life"   
--------------------------------------------   
  
  
-= Part Three: Through the Past =-   
  
  
"Who the hell are you?" Eriol asked, his voice laced with venom and desperation, as he cradled Kaho's limp form in his arms.   
  
Dying.   
  
She was dying.   
  
He saw the flash of an enigmatic smile, a perfect ivory-white smile that would have been charming under different circumstances, gleaming from beneath the mysterious attacker's hood. Eriol shuddered.   
  
So familiar...   
  
"You know who I am," the evil being responded in a deep voice that Eriol had heard before but could not quite place. "I live to ruin you. I live to destroy all that you hold most dear. I have already done so before. I am your curse."   
  
"Curse?" Eriol echoed, feeling rather stupid to be conversing with his beloved's killer, but he had to know why this was all happening. He didn't want his life or hers to end meaninglessly.   
  
"You still don't remember?" the evil figure chuckled, absently twirling its mage staff in its gloved hand. "You may be half the man you once were, but you cannot help being who you are. I know you. You cannot feign ignorance. You *will* remember."   
  
Eriol tore his gaze from the enemy and looked at Kaho tenderly. His vision was slightly murky, his eyes glazed with tears he refused to shed but ran down his cheeks in mournful streams of rebellion anyway.   
  
He was too late.   
  
He held back a sob, trembling as he gently laid Kaho back on the floor.   
  
"She didn't deserve this," Eriol murmured, slowly rising to his feet while quietly summoning all of his magical strength. It had been a few years since he had used his powers to their full potential, and only half of his original power remained. Nevertheless, Eriol was still a formidable magician. Even as he wiped the tears from his face with a shaking hand, there was only one thought in his mind: murder.   
  
"If you're my problem, you bastard," he spat in a low, unhinged tone, "why did you hurt her? You should have faced me instead of preying on someone innocent, as only a coward would."   
  
The insidious hooded figure crossed its arms, the mage staff still clutched in its left hand, and levitated slightly off the floor, tilting its head as if it were thinking deeply. Eriol could see, by its haughty, demeaning stance, that it was really just humoring him. He could hear the cruel smile behind its answer.   
  
"Foolish, foolish boy. I already told you that I am your curse. I will destroy what you value most. Although Mizuki Kaho was not the *true* one," it grinned maliciously, and Eriol was at once startled and puzzled, "she *was* what your heart valued most for the moment. So even though you would have moved on to better women eventually, I needed to kill her, anyway."   
  
Eriol's eyes widened as the guilt spread through his chest, and his instant burst of anger seared the limits of his patience. "You... you... DON'T you DARE insult Kaho!"   
  
The hooded figure laughed contemptuously, its head thrown back. As it did so, Eriol caught of glimpse of the face hidden in shadow and froze in horrified shock, the color quickly draining from his cheeks.   
  
"I am *your* curse. I feast upon *your* misery. I feed upon *your* soul's gradual destruction so that I may live," the enemy declared coldly, its bone-chilling face covered in the shadows of the hood once again as it unerringly pointed at Eriol with its weapon. "It's entirely *your* fault I'm here. You will watch yourself destroy your own soul, after all."   
  
It took Eriol a second to register everything, and the forgotten memory from a life long past became suddenly fresh in his mind.   
  
"No..."   
  
It smiled disarmingly.   
  
"You can't be... I thought... But I'm not..." Eriol abruptly stopped moving, stopped breathing. In his mind, everything simply stopped. Time froze, as if to preserve the moment in a cold, living photograph--irrefutable proof of his guilt.   
  
And then, after a long moment of tense inaction, he screamed.   
  
The battle began.   
  
And as his world crumbled around him, Hiiragizawa Eriol remembered everything.   
  


* * *

  
  
The visions shifted, and he was momentarily confused, unsure which scene was a dream, a memory, or a glimpse of dreary reality. Still, his subconscious realized that he needed time to grieve because he would most certainly break down otherwise. Eriol may have been a wise and powerful sorcerer in another lifetime, but in this life, he was just a young, vulnerable man who did not understand very much, in spite of his claims to the contrary.   
  
He was just a boy, really.   
  
The white walls in his mind grew ever higher and stronger.   
  


* * *

  
  
Once upon a time, there lived a young sorcerer gifted with power beyond anything the world had ever seen. Many were jealous of his power, and the young magician further enraged jealous mages with his arrogance. Being young and foolish, he rather liked to boast about his own importance; lessons in humility were consistently wasted on him.   
  
Even so, the young man, though arrogant, possessed a good heart. He enjoyed helping people with his talents, making children laugh with magic while aiding adults in need. Being a self-righteous individual, he did not appreciate bad people, and from a young age, he aimed to punish criminals with his power.   
  
Above all, however, as a human being cursed with power inevitably craves more, the young man began to want more power. He hungered for the knowledge to make himself stronger, for nothing pleased him more than wielding power to manipulate life itself. Yet a man can only rise so far in a quest for godhood before he must fall, and the powerful young man was already teetering on that precarious edge in his youth.   
  
When he was fifteen, he first noted that his life was missing something, and he became concerned. He did nothing to aggravate that feeling, but the emptiness grew, and continued to grow, until he could not bear the void in his heart any longer. At seventeen, he set out from home, telling his family that he would travel to learn more magic and help people without magic. In truth, he wanted to fill the void within his heart, so he became obsessed with possessing all the knowledge and power the world had to offer, believing that gaining power would be the most fulfilling mission in his life. He believed power would cure his hollowness.   
  
He was young and foolish. Without a good teacher, he was doomed to learn from painful experiences.   
  
So he did.   
  
On his travels, he met older, wiser magicians who taught him their differing arts, unable to deny the young man's immense potential and power. The young man's strength grew fast--but his pride grew exponentially faster.   
  
Two years of wanderings later, he reached the Holy Land. There he stumbled upon a man claiming to have learned magic from the best magicians in Rome. In a crowded street, the self-proclaimed Roman boisterously showed off his magic, to the amazement of ignorant onlookers, but the young man believed that the Roman was too weak and arrogant to be allowed to display his magical idiocies.   
  
He decided to put the Roman in his place. The young man, teeming with energy, easily defeated the braggart in a duel and thus claimed to expose the Roman's deceit. The Roman was enraged, and rightfully so, because his magic, though mostly weak, was real. The young man refused to believe because he deemed himself too powerful to stoop to listen to so insignificant an adversary.   
  
He did not notice that the void in his heart continued to grow.   
  
In the ensuing verbal argument, the Roman cursed the young man, but the young man scoffed at his opponent. How could such a weakling possibly harm him with delirious spells? Without a backward glance, the young man cast a final, debilitating spell and left his opponent in abject ruins.   
  
The youth did not realize that the curse on him was the only truly powerful magic that the Roman had mastered. He did not realize that the curse had taken effect. He did not know that the strength of the curse depended on the strength of its victim. He also did not realize that the curse was now so strong that it could follow him even into his next lives.   
  
He did not realize very much that day, and he would certainly live to regret it.   
  
The years passed, and the young sorcerer forgot the incident. Through experience, he acquired wisdom, and through wisdom, he matured. His power grew tremendously, to the point where he knew everything there was to know. He knew all the secrets of life, and he knew all the secrets of magic.   
  
However, he also knew depression.   
  
His only companion was loneliness.   
  
As a man with power so close to a deity's, he had placed himself upon a pedestal which no human being dared approach, and thus no human being ever grew close to his heart. He allowed no one to come close.   
  
In his adulthood, however, he learned to accept the error of his youthful ways and strove to change himself, realizing that knowledge and power made him increasingly unhappy. He did not want the burden of his power; the consequence of his strength, after all, was a lonely existence. He set a plan in motion, knowing that one day, his daughter would free him, and to fulfill this plan, he created his guardians. Thus, his heart was set to be released from its burden.   
  
Through his guardians, the powerful sorcerer gave himself future freedom from magic as well as present companionship to ease his loneliness. With his guardians, life improved as he discontinued his quest for power, yet he felt that what he had sought in his youth--something to fill the void in his heart--was still missing.   
  
Decades and adventures passed, yet the lonely sorcerer remained unhappy under a facade of cheerfulness, frustrated that he could not discover what was missing from his life. He kept searching, fruitlessly, and the seasons passed, the time trickling away surely and quietly, until his predicted death day.   
  
Then, for no apparent reason, he remembered the Roman's curse.   
  
The Roman's spell had been cast in his youth so long ago, and had seemed so insignificant, that he was startled by the sudden resurfacing memory. Completely baffled, he wondered what his recollection meant, for unexpected memories and visions *always* meant something important.   
  
Throughout that day, even as he was sealing his guardians and sealing his book, he wondered about the Roman curse, attempting to remember the words of the spell. He felt it was crucial that he recall what was said, but, try as he might, he could not form the words.   
  
The hour of his death drew even closer. The sun set, and a soothing darkness settled across the land, across nature, as if the planet itself understood and respected his final moments, and had heard his last request for peace.   
  
And only then, as suddenly as the memory had surfaced, the magician recalled *everything*. It shocked him, nearly overwhelming him with emotion.   
  
The memory made him realize that he had not prepared himself to meet fate. He realized he wasn't in control of his life, and he had not been in control for a long, long time. Finally understanding the significance of his memory, yet powerless to change the course of the future, the sorcerer sighed, deep sadness permeating his soul.   
  
He closed his eyes for the last time.   
  


* * *

  
  
The centuries-old memory was alarmingly clear.   
  
He could see the Roman's crooked grin. He remembered to frown at the dull glimmer of bloodstained teeth.   
  
"Foolish, foolish boy. You will watch yourself destroy your own soul."   
  
The words had been uttered in Latin, but his centuries of study allowed virtually nothing to escape his understanding. The pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place, and at last he discovered that ultimate secret, the one answer that had always eluded him, staying always desperately out of his reach.   
  
At last he understood that, throughout his life, he had been meaninglessly destroying himself with his self-imposed solitude. Every day, he had wondered what that void in his heart was, why his reflection had always stared back at him with mournful eyes, and only now did he find the answer.   
  
Bitterly, he realized that the curse, a curse that he had so readily dismissed in his youth, had taken effect after all.   
  
"You will watch yourself destroy your own soul."   
  
You will watch yourself destroy the one thing that can make you happy.   
  
*Love*.   
  
You will watch.   
  
*Unrequited*.   
  
You will watch.   
  
*Water mage*.   
  
Watch.   
  
*He never knew*.   
  
He had been an arrogant fool.   
  
He had made himself miserable in this lifetime by pushing away anyone and everyone who would have loved him, including even his guardians. He had trapped his soul in a long, painful existence, surrounded in blind, arrogant walls of self-imposed isolation and cold apathy.   
  
In a future that he could no longer see, Clow Read would inevitably destroy his own soul again.   
  
"You will watch."   
  
The suffering, the tragedy, would be great.   
  


* * *

  
  
Many years after Clow, Kinomoto Fujitaka indeed watched, his face streaked with tears, as his young wife died in his arms. Her death had been directly his fault, and the anguished husband knew he would never again be completely free of guilt. But because Kinomoto Fujitaka was not fully Clow Read, and did not have access to Clow's memories, his suffering eased. He did not receive the full impact of the curse after he suffered his first loss.   
  
Still many more years later, Hiiragizawa Eriol watched, his face streaked with tears, as his lover died in his arms. He had come too late to save her from a curse he had unleashed upon himself. Yet although Hiiragizawa Eriol was not fully Clow Read, he still possessed Clow's memories.   
  
The curse followed him.   
  
It had only begun, and it would continue to haunt his soul, unless he found a way to break free.   
  
But the curse followed him even as he fled.   
  


* * *

  
  
For some reason, Tomoyo didn't feel so awkward, lying in bed with an unconscious, naked man whom she considered one of her best friends and who had, apparently, just lost the people he loved most. In light of everything that had happened the night before and everything that had somehow gone off course in her life, her detached non-reaction abruptly made Tomoyo suddenly question her own heart.   
  
Could she be so dead to the world that she no longer even knew how to care?   
  
Tomoyo shuddered at the possibility. She rather liked to think that she was handling things very well. After all, it was her job to handle things smoothly when the world was going to hell.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun?" she murmured softly as she tried to extract herself from his grip. His arms had found their way around her waist, even as she lay on top of the blankets and he lay under them. She disentangled her arms from around his shoulders and gently tried to pry his arms off her, to no avail. He merely tightened his hold.   
  
She sighed, glancing at the clock on her bedside dresser only to note that it was already noon. Since lying in bed was most definitely not an effective way to defend oneself from imminent evil, Tomoyo was somewhat relieved they were still alive. She also started to worry because neither of them had eaten anything yet, and they both needed sustenance now, more than ever. With those thoughts, Tomoyo struggled to escape Eriol's embrace once again.   
  
He muttered something unintelligible, but unmistakably whiny, when she finally managed to peel him off her. Trying not to wake him, she gracelessly stumbled out of bed and collapsed in a heap on her floor, next to the pitiful remnants of her heroically attempted Western breakfast.   
  
"I have a headache," she winced, wondering why her head was pounding so badly when she hadn't done anything to deserve it. Ignoring the queasy feeling in her stomach, she proceeded to clean up her room, and then, with that done, she went to her bathroom to freshen up.   
  
After the ten minutes she took to make herself look presentable again and rummage around her apartment for things that Eriol would need when he woke up, she returned to her bedroom to find her visitor sitting up in bed, a slightly sleepy, unreadable expression on his face. Still standing in the doorway, where she could observe him inconspicuously, she had to admit that Eriol looked adorable with his tousled dark hair falling across his forehead, but the bandages made him look more dangerously attractive somehow.   
  
He's as gorgeous as ever, Tomoyo decided, absently musing how Mizuki-sensei could ever resist Eriol, who was currently in a state of irresistible undress. And when Tomoyo at last realized what she was thinking about one of her oldest, dearest friends, she promptly blushed and looked away.   
  
She would hate to openly admit it, but she had always harbored a slight crush on Eriol. It was no coincidence that, throughout their high school and college careers, though Eriol was involved with Mizuki-sensei, Tomoyo and Eriol always went to school functions together.   
  
Everyone reasoned that it would have been inappropriate for Mizuki-sensei to go out publicly with a student, and, according to Eriol and Syaoran, Tomoyo had yet to meet a man they deemed worthy to go out with her. Everyone, apparently, was a loser, and Tomoyo had only perpetuated that misconception because she would rather have fun with Eriol than blunder through a date with someone in whom she had no interest, even if that someone were a prince.   
  
Outwardly, of course, Tomoyo appeared exasperated at Eriol and Syaoran's attempts to guard her (usually by chasing away unfortunate suitors by siccing Akizuki-san on them) until her fabled "perfect" man arrived, but inwardly, she agreed.   
  
She hadn't yet met anyone who could make her *feel*.   
  
Except Eriol.   
  
Only Eriol had captured her interest, and only Eriol had unknowingly stolen into her soul. That much she could admit.   
  
If his heart weren't...   
  
If she hadn't...   
  
If...   
  
*Kaho*.   
  
Tomoyo frantically forced herself to break her train of thought, but not before the darkest, vilest, most horrifying inner workings of her mind made themselves suddenly known. They terrified her, and she wanted to scream for everything to stop. But the thoughts washed over her in a cold, vengeful, towering wave, completely unbidden.   
  


* * *

  
  
If *Kaho* weren't in my way...   
  
If *Kaho* had never existed...   
  
If he had fallen for *me* first...   
  
If only Kaho...   
  
Kaho.   
  
Well, shouldn't you be rejoicing now? After all, she's as good as dead.   
  
Yes.   
  
Dead.   
  
Finally.   
  
Finally.   
  
Finally.   
  
...   
  
...   
  
I'm glad.   
  


* * *

  
  
The chilling thoughts shook her.   
  
Feeling suddenly ill, Tomoyo shuddered at the unexpected surge of hatred filling her chest and forcibly wrenched her mind away from that awful direction. She hadn't even *known* she was capable of being so terribly selfish, so uncharacteristically... evil. She hadn't known she had a dark side for she had never truly visited it, and falling so fast and so hard into it now threw her into a panic.   
  
Was she going out of her mind?   
  
Had she finally gone insane?   
  
Why hadn't she seen the edge even as she was falling over it?   
  
NO! she protested mentally, refusing to consider madness because she didn't know *how* to define madness and her world couldn't *afford* to have madness.   
  
No.   
  
She was Daidouji Tomoyo, and kind-hearted Daidouji Tomoyo did NOT wish for people to die, and sweet-tempered Daidouji Tomoyo was NEVER glad that someone was dead, and perfect Daidouji Tomoyo was in love with life.   
  
Of course.   
  
And that explained why she didn't have anyone with whom she could celebrate her life.   
  
Of course.   
  
That was why she was so happy.   
  
Of course.   
  
Of course.   
  
And now was not the time to collapse into tears.   
  
To calm down, Tomoyo focused on the happier events of long ago, trying to lighten her mood with more pleasant memories.   
  
Yes, happy memories would be good. Therapeutic.   
  
Good times. They were all in the past.   
  
She desperately needed something to take her mind off her worries, soshe closed her eyes and remembered.   
  
High school.   
  
College.   
  
Those were more innocent times, when life was untouched by the harsh realities imposed by adulthood, when everyone was still together and it felt as if they would all be together forever, basking in close friendships, forming a family bonded by love and not obligated by blood.   
  
Tomoyo remembered.   
  
How they had hung out at the ice cream parlor, where the owner had learned to bring their orders as soon as they sat down.   
  
How they had gone to countless arcades, malls, movies, festivals, plays, and concerts over the years.   
  
How much fun everyone always had.   
  
How she and Eriol were always together, and Mizuki-sensei had not minded or even thought much of it, and they had not minded or thought much about it. No one had thought much of it because the boundaries had been clearly drawn.   
  
Tomoyo had enjoyed all the times she was paired with Eriol, and that had been Tomoyo's secret, her guilty pleasure. It had been her one source of true happiness whenever she felt sad.   
  
It had been wonderful, being with Eriol.   
  
Since all potential boyfriends had fled from the ubiquitous death glares of Tomoyo's best male friends, naturally, Tomoyo and Eriol, consistently left unpaired within their circle of friends, always fell back on each other as partners. Kaho, whom Tomoyo had always known was a gentle soul, had never shown disapproval, and Kaho had even encouraged the partnership in some ways. For Tomoyo, the fantasy had been innocent fun while it lasted, and it had been nice to pretend, sometimes, that the circulating rumors about their non-existent, secret, passionate love affair were true.   
  
Those rumors had admittedly been the source of great fun, and both Tomoyo and Eriol had taken unreasonable delight in staging lovers' spats and engaging in utterly misleading behavior to fuel the flames. Only Sakura and Syaoran had known the truth, and they were only too eager to help Eriol and Tomoyo, who were both popular school leaders and, as such, happily influenced everyone's lives.   
  
In those later teen years, Tomoyo finally understood why Eriol loved to manipulate people in spite of himself. Simply put, manipulation was *fun*, and Tomoyo, who hadn't done it since she had manipulated Sakura and Syaoran into falling in love, had realized she missed the underhanded craft.   
  
Tomoyo grinned, pacified by her happier memories of Eriol and Li-kun joining forces to [rather humorously] preserve Tomoyo's reputation, and the sinful thoughts of Mizuki-sensei's possible fate drifted away, but Tomoyo's face fell when her mind returned to the present once more.   
  
She opened her eyes and remembered.   
  
Everything had happened *years* ago, and life had changed.   
  
Right now, everyone was grown up and had moved on beyond silly antics, and right now, when life was hanging in a delicate balance that she could not even begin to comprehend, Tomoyo's practical side realized that she could not afford silly, girlish nostalgia.   
  
Not when people might be dead.   
  
Mizuki-sensei, her mind helpfully supplied. Mizuki-sensei might be dead.   
  
So grow up, Tomoyo, she told herself sternly, and she turned to Eriol, who now noticed that she had entered the bedroom.   
  
Eriol's stolid expression transformed into a somewhat forced smile when he saw her. She wanted to pity him for all that he had been through, but she guessed, knowing Eriol, that he would not appreciate such an emotion. She waited for him to make the opening, and, as if he had read her mind, he did.   
  
His voice was low, rough, and hesitant. "Daidouji-san, ohayou gozaimasu..."   
  
She nodded in response, a bit wary of how she should act around him. She couldn't be too sure of what to expect, given his strange behavior since his arrival, and she did not want to trample on his obviously raw emotions.   
  
"Actually, it's a bit past noon," she smiled gently at him, watching as he blinked in confusion and absent-mindedly scratched his cheek. Slight stubble was showing on his face, and Tomoyo made a mental note to give him one of her razors when he went to get cleaned up. She remembered how much he disliked facial hair; she did, after all, secretly approve of his clean-shaven look. "We both need to get something to eat before we starve," Tomoyo said, sitting next to him on the bed and trying not to show how nervous she felt. He didn't make a comment, so she asked, hesitantly, "How are you feeling?"   
  
He shrugged, not quite meeting her gaze, and silence descended upon the room.   
  
Lacking anything else to say but absolutely needing to say something, she ignored his disturbing passiveness and persisted with her hospitality, however trivial hospitality seemed at the moment. "So... would you like a drink of water?" she inquired helpfully.   
  
At first she thought he was going to ignore her again, but then he looked up at her with a meaningfully grateful smile. She was taken aback; she had thought that he wouldn't be capable of a real smile at this point. Before she could delve deeper into her thoughts, he politely declined her offer with a shake of his head. "No... thank you."   
  
The room was quiet again for a few moments as Tomoyo looked at Eriol, who was looking away. He was staring blankly at the wall opposite the bed, his face showing subtle melancholy, and after a while, Tomoyo shifted uncomfortably on the bed, not quite sure what she was supposed to do with him now.   
  
He didn't want water. He didn't care to move around. He didn't appear to be in a talkative mood. He didn't even look too emotional. He didn't feel like staring at anything but that seemingly fascinating spot on her wall, and his lack of movement made Tomoyo more than a bit jittery.   
  
She was on unfamiliar ground. How could she deal with someone who couldn't remember what had happened to him? It wasn't as if people lost their memory every day. Tomoyo knew that kind of trauma only conveniently happened in bad soap operas, and even then, they made it a point to stretch the boundaries of believability further.   
  
This was just ridiculous.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." she began, resolutely not giving up on Eriol until he said more than three syllables, "will you... that is... would you like to talk about anything?"   
  
Still he made no comment. He simply leaned forward, wearily propping his elbows on his bent knees and burying his face in his hands, as if hiding his face from the world might somehow erase reality. For an instant, Tomoyo considered just leaving him alone because his defensive actions certainly suggested his want of solitude, but then he spoke, banishing Tomoyo's insecurities.   
  
He uttered one word, a word that proved Eriol was still alive, that he was thinking on a level above misery. Tomoyo was relieved. "Maybe," he said.   
  
A bit encouraged by his reply, she nodded, "All right then." She paused, eyeing him worriedly before she carefully reworded her earlier question. "So... are you feeling any better?"   
  
Seeing how she genuinely wanted to help, he thought about it briefly and decided he could be honest around Tomoyo because she usually saw through the lies anyway. She was the only one who consistently showed she could. His voice still muffled in his hands, he whispered, "I feel as if I went through hell."   
  
His unembellished honesty made Tomoyo grimace, but she recognized that he was opening up. They were progressing, and Tomoyo was thrilled. "Sorry," she sympathized. "I guess it must be a bad day for both of us... I feel the same way, strangely enough."   
  
He surprised her when he slowly straightened, running his hands through his hair as he turned to look at her seriously. His expressive eyes bored into hers for a few moments, as if he were trying to read her mind, and then he shrugged, turning away again.   
  
"Actually... the headache's probably not your fault. I could be rubbing off on you magically," he admitted, looking apologetic, and she raised an eyebrow in confusion. Remembering that Tomoyo had little magical ability, he elaborated, "Normally I can hold my magic inside me, and I seal and release it at will. But since I feel terrible at the moment, my control is currently inadequate, and I'm leaking magic all over the place. Hence, your headache."   
  
Tomoyo looked at him skeptically, wondering how much of his unusually inelegant, yet effective explanation was caused by a possible concussion. She was about to ask about Eriol's guardians, but then she remembered the distressing repercussions when she mentioned them that morning; Eriol had fought her like an enraged lunatic. With that image haunting her mind, she settled for saying, noncommittally, "Oh... I see..."   
  
She had to figure out how to act around him soon. This was unnerving.   
  
"I regret that my magic is affecting you," Eriol apologized gracefully, managing an air of chivalry and ruefulness at the same time. "I also apologize for my emotional, uh... display... this morning, Daidouji-san. I hope I did nothing I'll regret later..."   
  
Tomoyo wasn't sure what to say next. Should she be honest and just tell him she thought he was crazy? Tell him that he had scared the wits out of her? That he had sobbed in her arms and had fought her savagely to the point of exhaustion?   
  
Although they were good friends, Tomoyo could feel the awkwardness breaching their relationship. The conversation almost felt like one between strangers, and she missed the easy banter that they had shared so many years ago. She finally considered just pointing out the bathroom and fleeing from the strangeness of talking to an unstable Eriol, but she decided against it.   
  
He needed a good friend at the moment, and she was already there.   
  
After another second of deliberation, she made a decision. She would not tiptoe around his feelings. After all, they had known each other for over ten years, and sidestepping his emotions was just stupid in this life-threatening situation. He was a grown man, and he would just have to deal with life and all of its cruel twists, and she would do her best to cheer him up because there was no point in hiding from the truth.   
  
"Don't worry, Hiiragizawa-kun. Of *course* you did something you'll regret later on," she smiled brightly, trying to lighten his mood, and when he managed a feeble, yet genuine, grin in return, she felt unreasonably happy. Her smile softened as she reached a hand out to clasp his. "But seriously... How do you feel? I know we're both confused about what's going on, but maybe it will help to talk for a bit. You know I'm here to listen."   
  
He nodded and said, hints of kindness shining in his eyes and in his voice, "You *are* a sap when it comes to your friends, Daidouji-san."   
  
She blushed and replied unthinkingly, under her breath, "Even more so around you."   
  
He didn't hear her comment. He was marveling at the unexpectedly beautifully red-faced Tomoyo, and he was wondering why he felt so guilty, as if he wasn't supposed to be happy, somehow. He shook the thought.   
  
The moment passed for both of them.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun," she said, feeling a bit stronger, and she took his other hand carefully in hers before looking at him directly. Her voice was quiet, but intense nonetheless. "Tell me, Hiiragizawa-kun. For everything I've ever told you and for everything you've done for me, you know you can share anything with me. Just... please... talk to me... what do you need?"   
  
His eyes shimmered with warmth, and she knew he understood the depth of her question. He saw that she was leaving it up to him to decide how far they would go, depending on his answer. She was giving him freedom.   
  
As tempting as the offer of complete honesty was, however, humor was still part of Eriol's personal defenses, and he was tempted to make a smart retort. But then he was surprised to find that he didn't have the heart for it.   
  
He was exhausted.   
  
He felt as if he had taken a beating that would last a lifetime, and he didn't have the energy to fight anything anymore. Eriol smirked. It was strange that although he could hardly remember the cause of his misery, he was pathetically miserable.   
  
"I need time to figure out what's going on," Eriol answered at last, after a moment of stillness, and he pulled away from her discreetly. "I really... just... I don't remember much of what happened before."   
  
He paused, looking perplexed as he directed his gaze towards the ceiling, and Tomoyo was disconcerted to hear him mumble softly to himself, "Is that even possible?"   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..."   
  
He shook his head, interrupting her. "It doesn't matter. I can't remember, and there's no point in trying."   
  
Unused to dealing with amnesiacs, Tomoyo's sympathetic side was at a loss, so her rational side smoothly took over. "Hiiragizawa-kun, I don't know what did this, but if it's strong enough to tamper with your memories," she almost shivered, "we absolutely need to clarify everything you can't remember. Fast. But first, do you believe what did this is strong enough to defeat even Sakura-chan and Li-kun?"   
  
"I don't know," he replied, raking a hand through his already mussed hair. "But this... I think this is something intensely personal. Something that our friends wouldn't be able to actually deal with even if they wanted to help." He blinked. "But it doesn't matter anyway. I can't *remember* anything valid. It's not important. Just... just drop it, all right?"   
  
Eriol's demeanor, although still kind, became noticeably defensive. Sensing that he no longer wished to discuss the matter, Tomoyo tactfully changed the subject to give him time to recover his thoughts. "Do you feel strong enough to walk? Your wounds *are* healing quickly."   
  
He looked impressed that she was so observant, momentarily forgetting that, as an artist, she *had* to be observant. "Actually, I'm mostly okay. You're right about my healing abilities. That's one of advanced magic's benefits."   
  
"Good," Tomoyo said, looking slightly more cheerful as she patted his shoulder in a friendly manner. "We won't be completely defenseless in an attack, then. Arigatou. You'd make a lovely human shield, Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
Eriol looked fairly amused, his expression matching the twinkle in her eye, but he instantly saw the low undercurrent of real fear in her gaze. He glanced around the bedroom, his eyes clouding as he magically scanned the surrounding environment, and then he turned back to her with a reassuring smile. "You can relax, Daidouji-san. I don't sense a threat nearby, and I have a good feeling that nothing will be attacking any time soon. Please don't worry so much."   
  
Tomoyo was surprised. After Eriol's strange behavior since he showed up at her doorstep, she wasn't sure how to respond to his seemingly levelheaded assessment... but she believed him. "I'm glad you're better anyway. Even so, neither of us is in any condition to fight anything. You may heal quickly, Hiiragizawa-kun, but you're definitely not a superhero."   
  
Feeling relieved that they were talking about "safe" topics, he happily took her bait.   
  
"I'll have you know that I've saved the world plenty of times," Eriol declared, "and I think I'm actually ready to battle the bad guys." He huffed in the most arrogant manner possible and promptly winced as he aggravated one of his injuries. "Just... give me a minute." He coughed. "Give me a minute, and I promise I'll valiantly risk my life to save the world once more from certain mortal peril."   
  
He coughed dramatically again.   
  
Tomoyo rolled her eyes. "I guess your brain damage is more extensive than I thought."   
  
Eriol looked aptly miffed, and Tomoyo smiled. If there was one thing about Eriol that she could count on, it was his undying air of superiority and his ability to make fun of himself; that combination was probably why he had been so popular in school. He was a dependable, good-humored guy who *knew* he was good but never actually flaunted it.   
  
"You need to get cleaned up," she told him, ignoring his pitiful injured act and shoving him (gently) back into the pillows, "and I'll get us some lunch. I couldn't call Hong Kong when I phoned work this morning, but I'm sure we should be able to reach Sakura-chan and Li-kun by now. At least we can try as soon as you're ready to figure out what's going on."   
  
"Of course," he agreed, but his cheerfulness was fading. "As soon as I'm ready... of course."   
  
She hesitated, her eyes meeting his and holding steady as the smile that had been playing on his face slowly vanished. In a gentle voice, she added, "We can also try calling England later."   
  
His light mood now completely extinguished, he looked away, scowling, because for some reason he could not quite grasp, thoughts of England made his blood boil. It was confusing, to say the least, to feel such a strong emotion about something he could not recall.   
  
Tomoyo almost wished she hadn't brought up the subject of England again, but then she recalled her decision to adhere to the truth. If the truth hurt, so be it.   
  
She watched him, trying to understand his mood. He had always been a difficult person to read, being almost as good at hiding emotions as she. Since he could hardly understand himself at the moment, however, the only emotion that Eriol exuded was confusion. Deciding that it was now best to leave him alone, Tomoyo stood and turned toward the door, only to be stopped by Eriol clearing his throat. She turned back and met his gaze again.   
  
In that moment, he shifted from a somber mood into a light-hearted one so quickly that she became worried about the distinct *wrongness* in his mood swings. Now that she really thought hard about it, there *was* something off about Eriol, and that discomforting insight instantly put Tomoyo on her guard.   
  
"Daidouji-san, it may be too much to hope, but do you have men's clothes for me to wear?" Eriol inquired, his face faintly displaying dread. Somewhat relieved, Tomoyo couldn't help but grin as he added, "I don't think I could fit into your clothes, nor do I even want to try. No offense to your fashion sense, Daidouji-san, but trust me. Women's clothes are *really* not suited to my physique..."   
  
One slim eyebrow shot up as Tomoyo regarded him thoughtfully, the grin spreading across her face, and Eriol suddenly realized that he had unwittingly given her valuable information.   
  
Tomoyo's intelligence must never be underestimated. This he had learned long ago, but he was currently being a delirious, oblivious idiot.   
  
She chuckled. "Hiiragizawa-kun, we'll discuss your... exploits... into women's fashion later." He bit his lip, feeling like shouting expletives at himself as she continued. "But don't forget--I'm a fashion designer. I keep outfits I've designed and made myself."   
  
"Ah," Eriol scratched the back of his head ruefully. He really should have known. "I suppose there are clothes and everything else I need in your bathroom."   
  
"That's right. New razors are in the first drawer on the left in the bathroom if you need to shave."   
  
"Arigatou gozaimasu, Daidouji-san," Eriol bowed his head, and she nodded politely back to him. "You are truly a great friend."   
  
Smiling, but not knowing how else to answer, she left. Tomoyo closed the door and leaned wearily back against it, and, as she tilted her head up to look at the ceiling, the humorous mental image of Eriol wearing something pink and lacy faded from her thoughts. She suddenly felt severely disappointed.   
  
Eriol was right.   
  
She was always such a great friend, wasn't she?   
  
Tomoyo bit her lip, discontent bristling inside her.   
  
She would go to great lengths to help her friends. She would risk her life for them. She loved them as she did family, because that was how her family had taught her to live. Everyone who knew Daidouji Tomoyo was glad to have her as a friend because she was the sympathetic angel, the emotional anchor, the comforting shoulder, the source of wisdom, the dependable leader, or the one people could fall back on when their plans didn't pan out.   
  
She was the one he always fell back on.   
  
Second choice.   
  
But she was never anything more.   
  
Suddenly, Eriol's well-intentioned compliment stung, as if it were the greatest insult in the world.   
  


* * *

  
  
As he crawled out of the bed, his limbs suffering various degrees of pain, Eriol wondered why he felt so incredibly disappointed in himself.   
  


* * *

  
  
"M'shim'shi," Kinomoto Touya answered the frantically ringing phone with half a bite of his sushi lunch still in his mouth. The Tokyo University professor had been lounging so contentedly in his office chair that he was startled when his ear was attacked by a woman's frantically yelling voice.   
  
"Onii-chan! PleasegetYukito-sanandgotoTomoyo-chan'splacebecausesheneedssomeonewithmagictoprotecther—"   
  
Touya nearly choked. "Kaijuu?"   
  
"HOEEEE! I am NOT a kaijuu! I'm a grown, pregnant woman, so don't you dare mess with me!"   
  
"Huh," the older Kinomoto smiled faintly at his sister's ever-present childishness, although he sensed something wrong. She was giving off so much power that even *he* could feel it from where he sat even though his own powers had been greatly diminished long ago.   
  
"Don't start mocking me!" she warned, and then she took a deep breath. "You have to get to Tomoyo-chan's apartment right away. She needs you and Yue-san to protect her. Syaoran and I sensed some evil magic coming after her last night, and we've been trying to contact Japan ever since. To make matters worse, something terrible happened in England, and we can't even contact Eriol-kun!"   
  
The smile immediately left Touya's face and was replaced by his more characteristic scowl. "Na-nani? What's going on? What happened in England?"   
  
"Hoeeeee! I'll explain later!" Sakura said too quickly, and it occurred to Touya that she was avoiding a discussion about England. Sakura didn't pause to breathe. "Right now, I *COMMAND* you to go to Tomoyo-chan's apartment! She can't be left by herself, and we don't know what form this evil is going to take, so please be careful! Syaoran and I will be there tomorrow! Hurry!"   
  
"All right, Kaijuu. All right," Touya reassured her, but in the back of his mind, he realized he was also trying to reassure himself. "I can tell this is urgent. Consider the request done."   
  
"'Nii-chan, you're the best!"   
  
His sister's almost forced, tense-sounding praise only made the cold feeling in the pit of Touya's stomach grow. In the next second, the door to Touya's office opened, and Tsukishiro Yukito, another professor at the university, strode in, having abandoned his normally inextricable afternoon meal. Yukito had transformed into a patiently alert and waiting Yue before Touya had even hung up the phone.   
  


* * *

  
  
As she was setting the table for lunch, Tomoyo thought she heard the sound of breaking glass. She would have readily dismissed it as a trick of her overworked mind if she hadn't heard the sound again, and again, and again. Surprised and now worried, she stared at the closed door to her bedroom, wondering if she should barge in to save Eriol from another bout of delirium.   
  
She never had to make that decision.   
  
A few seconds after she heard the sounds and turned toward the door, Eriol opened it.   
  
He looked really good for an injured man, Tomoyo admitted, as Eriol hesitantly stepped out into the living room, fresh from the shower. She fought the practical urge to ask him to model her new line of men's clothes, seeing that the outfit looked unbelievably stylish on him. In gray jeans held up by a thick, black, leather belt, and a royal blue, long-sleeved silk shirt with navy trim, Eriol was beautiful to behold.   
  
A closer inspection, however, led Tomoyo to notice something else: the pale expression on his face and his dark, frighteningly unseeing eyes. Suddenly, she didn't care what he was wearing.   
  
He looked as if he had seen a ghost.   
  
Dazed, he raised his trembling right hand to shoulder level, palm up, fingers slightly curled, and stared at it dumbly, as if he were beholding his hand for the first time.   
  
Finally Tomoyo saw it.   
  
"You're *bleeding*!" she cried, running to him. She reached his side in a second, and gently she took his injured hand in hers, turning it over carefully to see how much damage he had done.   
  
"I... Sumimasen. I broke it. Your mirror," his deep voice came in soft, halting gasps, as if he had been pushing himself so hard for so long that he had forgotten how to inhale. "I... I don't know why. I just got so angry. I don't know what came over me. I must have been delirious. Insane. I... I don't understand. Sumimasen."   
  
Something nagged at the back of Tomoyo's consciousness.   
  
"Sumimasen..."   
  
*Something was still off about Eriol*.   
  
"Sumimasen," he repeated.   
  
Something not quite right...   
  
"Sumimasen."   
  
Her eyes met his.   
  
And in that moment, looking up into those deep, sorrowful blue orbs, with her hands cradling his, Tomoyo realized that, in spite of his desperately disjointed speech and his hopelessly lost expression, Hiiragizawa Eriol was quite perfectly *sane*.   
  
And he had been quite perfectly *sane* when he punched her mirror to shards only moments ago.   
  
*That* was what had been bothering her. Eriol was a perfectly sane man trying to act insane, and she knew this with a sudden, unfailing certainty.   
  
She knew because she could see the way his knuckles were cut from the first punch, a punch that he had thrown with deadly precision and not in a fit of wild delirium. She knew he was lying because she could also see the way his palms were so cleanly cut, as if he had deliberately picked up the broken shards of glass and, gripping them tightly in his shivering hand, proceeded to viciously and methodically hack away at the rest of the mirror, as if he had glimpsed something that he did not wish to see.   
  
She saw that his eyes glimmered with the honesty and drama she had seen in countless performances before--because this was nothing more than a performance. She had always seen through his lies, no matter how convincing an actor he was, and she could practically feel the guilt and the deceit and the desperation flowing from him, as if his emotions were leaking into her.   
  
She didn't let on that she knew, and she sensed his relief that she wasn't pressing him for answers. If he wanted to pretend that this was all his madness, then so be it. She would find out when he was ready to share. She would make sure of it.   
  
"It's okay. Tell me about it later. Right now, we need to take care of your hand," Tomoyo said, holding back the questions racing through her mind.   
  
Even though her suspicions were finally beginning to be aroused, and even though her unconditional trust was bending at last, Tomoyo took care of his hand and had it cleaned and bandaged neatly within ten minutes. With that done, Tomoyo quietly led Eriol to the dining room for lunch, delivered from a nearby Chinese restaurant earlier.   
  
They ate in silence, and in an unspoken mutual agreement, the silence remained unbroken as they eyed each other fleetingly throughout the meal. Eriol kept his head bowed for the most part to avoid her gaze, hiding his eyes beneath his dark hair, signaling that he did not want to be questioned.   
  
Please back off, his posture seemed to say. Give me time to think. Give me time to breathe.   
  
So she complied. They both knew they needed time to think and straighten things out, and this was their opportunity. However, Tomoyo became more concerned when she noticed that Eriol's eyes were filled with a dark remorse that hadn't been there when he had woken up. She was tempted to ask if he remembered something, but she decided to wait until after lunch.   
  
They needed peace, and they needed to replenish their energy. Her questions could wait.   
  
Tomoyo and Eriol made short work of the food, and together they quickly washed and put away her dishes almost without a word to each other. Tomoyo was surprised that they worked so well together, their actions bordering on mind reading in spite of the recent, understandably traumatizing events.   
  
When they at last sat down in her living room, Tomoyo in the love seat and Eriol in the couch adjacent to it, Tomoyo felt the tension was so thick that she could drown in it. She wasted no more time.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, just... just tell me what you know. Please."   
  
Her voice was disconcertingly loud in the flourishing silence. He blinked, as if surprised by her straightforwardness, and he hesitated before giving a response. "I told you... I don't remember how I got here or why I was beaten up. I don't even know why I came *here,* to Tokyo of all places, when I should have been..." His breath caught, and his voice lowered to an angry, nearly inaudible whisper. "Tokyo means *nothing* to me... Nothing."   
  
Tomoyo heard the bitterness in his last comment, and she wondered if she should be offended. "I think you *do* know something," Tomoyo insisted, reasonably irritated that he was lying to her. If Eriol didn't want to talk, he knew he could just say so, but he was *lying*, and she did not appreciate it. Did he really distrust her to the point where he couldn't even ask for more time to himself? She wouldn't be offended. She would understand. Really, she would. But the more he tried to hide, the more she wanted to know.   
  
Eriol's expression darkened.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun," her voice grew gentle, "you know I care about you. You know I want to help. Please let me." She reached out across the couch to grasp his hand, but he quickly pulled away. Deeply insulted, she tried to pretend his reaction didn't hurt her, focusing instead on his needs. "I can't help you if I don't know what you need help for. You have to tell me something. I don't even know what you did to your hand! At least tell me that."   
  
A pained look crossed his features, and he looked away, staring out the picture windows in her living room and into the clouded Tokyo skies beyond.   
  
It took the last of Tomoyo's patience not to scream. She settled for saying coldly, "You're not being fair."   
  
He didn't even acknowledge that she had spoken. He didn't even *blink*.   
  
And that was the last straw. When he didn't respond, she was angered, her patience shattered. Finally throwing all caution and politeness out the window, she growled, "Hiiragizawa Eriol, I know you better than this. Tell me what's going on! We can't afford to just sit around waiting to be attacked, so stop being such an *ass*."   
  
His eyes snapped to hers, and he asked, effectively stunned, "What?"   
  
"You're being a self-absorbed, ungrateful brat, and your selfishness, for all I know, could cost the people around you their lives," she declared. Encouraged by his surprised expression, she added, her voice rising steadily, "I don't think you lied to me when you woke up this morning or when you woke up this afternoon, but I know you *lied* when you came out of the bathroom. You purposefully smashed my mirror, and I think it's *perfectly* reasonable for me to know why in the world you did it!"   
  
He sat staring at her, thunderstruck. She felt a bit sorry for her outburst, so she continued, in a softer, less accusing, almost pleading voice, "I consider you one of my best friends in the world, Hiiragizawa-kun. You know that. It's one thing to lie to me when you're just teasing," she paused, trying to convey both hurt and understanding, "but this is different. This is serious. This is life-threatening. This is *your* mental health. And I think I have a right to know what you know because I believe the evil coming after me has something to do with you."   
  
Perhaps his fury had been there all along, biding its time underneath his cheerful facade, until she had at last provoked it with her questions, but Tomoyo had never before seen Eriol's face twist into so much anger in so little time. She was frightened by his sudden show of animosity.   
  
He stood and turned, so that his back was to her, and he snarled, "How the *hell* am I supposed to know if it's got anything to do with you? And who do you think *you* are? You don't even have magic, so why the hell would anything ever revolve around *you*? What gives you the right to act all high and mighty and ask me questions?"   
  
Eriol's brutal response shocked Tomoyo, and her eyes widened in surprise. She was speechless.   
  
"I think this has absolutely NOTHING to do with you, Daidouji-san, and I'm just here because of a stupid freak accident," Eriol's rant had escalated so that he was nearly yelling now, his face white with anger. Tomoyo recognized that he was venting his frustrations on her, and although his venting was taking its toll on her ego, she was relieved that he was opening up promisingly.   
  
"This will sound like a slap in the face to you," he murmured, his voice intense but more controlled, "but if you want my honesty, then prepare to be insulted."   
  
He paused, his shoulders drooping almost imperceptibly, and he turned back to face her, his intense blue eyes radiating sadness, regret, and cold vengeance. "We're not as close as we used to be, Daidouji-san. You can't pretend I'm one of your best friends when I've been living on the other side of the world, and I hear from you every three months!"   
  
Her expression was quiet and unflinching, so he pressed on. "You're distant from everyone, Daidouji-san, and you're just..." he hesitated again, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "Daidouji-san, I... I'm sorry."   
  
He looked pained, and Tomoyo was torn between fleeing and shaking more of the truth out of him. She knew venting his frustrations was good for Eriol. He needed to vent if he wanted some peace of mind, and Tomoyo was willing to listen, however painful it might be for both of them. But was she even strong enough to hear what he had to say?   
  
This wasn't what she had wanted or expected to hear.   
  
"Daidouji-san," Eriol sounded as if he had given up, but then he gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He released everything in a rush that took Tomoyo by surprise. "Daidouji-san, please understand that you're my friend, but you're just NOT a significant part of my life. You may have been a good friend before, but times change." He sounded desperate. "Don't you see? Don't you understand why I'm so confused and convinced that you shouldn't get involved in this?"   
  
It was as if he were begging her to understand, but now she suddenly felt like strangling him. "Hiiragizawa," she wanted to grimace at her grating lack of familiarity with his name, "other than pointing out the fact that you *don't* give a damn about me, which, by the way, I'm already used to, what's your point exactly?"   
  
He clenched his fists again, and he shook his head, averting his gaze. "I don't mean to insult you. Believe me. This is *not* about you. It has *nothing* to do with you. It's about where everyone else is, how people inevitably drift apart." He looked back at her meaningfully. "It's about the people who mean the world to me."   
  
*And you, Daidouji-san, are not one of them.*   
  
Tomoyo felt a dull ache in her chest when she heard his unspoken words, and she felt a part of herself fade. She felt betrayed. Why was he being so cruel? Why was he saying this to a woman who had saved his life only the night before?   
  
Tomoyo usually saw the good in bad things, and when she couldn't find the good, she found justifications. In Eriol's case, she supposed he really was too broken to care. Tomoyo could understand that, and she decided that she could tolerate him, even if he hurt her, because he was suffering already.   
  
Oblivious to everything but his own thoughts, Eriol said, his voice breaking at last, "The point is, I don't know *why* I'm here, Daidouji-san, standing here, yelling at you. Don't you see? By all rights, I should be... I should be..." he was on the verge of crying, and he rubbed his eyes to stop the tears from forming. But he exploded, his fist slamming into the wall next to him with a sharp crack that made Tomoyo wince. "Damn it, Daidouji-san! I should be DEAD! Hell, I *want* to die! Then at least I could be with *her*! Why couldn't you have just left me to DIE when you-"   
  
Something snapped inside Tomoyo, and Eriol didn't finish his suggestion because she slapped him.   
  
Her eyes blazing fire, her lips set in an angry line, her bearing powerful and demanding, Daidouji Tomoyo looked every inch an angry goddess. Eriol was shocked, and he suddenly had little trouble remembering why Tomoyo made such a great leader, having both profound compassion and strength of character. He was floored.   
  
"I can't believe you would dare say that," Tomoyo said, her voice low, but exuding extreme fury. "I can't believe you'd be so unbelievably *stupid*. You can insult me all you want, because I understand you've been through a lot. You already have so much to deal with, and I can easily handle being an emotional punching bag. But to say that you want to... that you want to..." She was breathing hard, and she glared at him, unable to even put the last thought to words. "It's unthinkable!"   
  
Eriol blinked, looking surprised and confused. "I didn't... I didn't mean..."   
  
Tomoyo didn't take note of his confusion, having too much trouble handling her own. "And I thought so highly of you, Hiiragizawa-kun," she whispered acridly. "Didn't you know? I admired your strength."   
  
With that, Tomoyo turned her back to him and stalked off to her bedroom, shutting the door, unaware that tears were rolling down her cheeks.   
  
Because for all of her unconditional disapproval of suicide, Tomoyo just really hadn't been able to handle being an emotional punching bag very well.   
  


* * *

  
  
Her usually immaculate private bathroom was a mess. It would definitely be a pain to clean up.   
  
"That... that *jerk*," Tomoyo muttered, seething because of what had just happened and because of the mess she would now have to fix. Even through her indignant rage, however, Tomoyo managed to coherently decide to keep Eriol away from her room and confine him in one of her spare bedrooms, where he could wreak as much havoc as he wished in his own bathroom. She still didn't understand what had driven him to such suicidal fury, and, as coldly ungrateful as he had been to her only a minute before, Tomoyo wondered if she still wanted to understand. He had hurt her, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to be around him anymore.   
  
But maybe...   
  
Maybe...   
  
It occurred to her that the problem wasn't Eriol at all.   
  
Maybe she was just afraid.   
  
Maybe she was afraid of what she might find if she looked hard enough. Maybe she was afraid of the horrors that she might see. She was afraid to get close... yet the barriers around her heart yearned to be broken.   
  
She and Eriol really used to get along so well.   
  
Tomoyo sighed, sinking to her knees on the floor just outside the bathroom. At last noticing the tears running down her cheeks, she wiped them off with the sleeve of her shirt, all the while staring at the bloody shards of broken glass on the bathroom floor.   
  
What had possessed him to do this?   
  
What could possess him to do this?   
  
Tomoyo could think of only one thing that could rile Eriol this much, but if he couldn't remember what had happened, then why did he feel so much anger and pain and sadness all at once? His emotions had been so powerful that he had lost the icy control that he had never, in his lifetime, lost.   
  
The flash of light from a piece of the broken mirror caught Tomoyo's eye and interrupted her thoughts. Mesmerized by the eerily jumbled images reflected back to her from a hundred different pieces of the mirror, Tomoyo reached out and picked up a jagged, triangular shard large enough to spread across the palm of her hand. Eriol's blood trailed along the sharp edge and trickled down the mirror side, reminding her of his unprovoked act of violence. It had been so unlike the cheerfully calm, mysterious, and wicked trickster she knew.   
  
Tomoyo frowned.   
  
Once again, the feeling that something was very wrong, something was just slightly *off*, overwhelmed her without warning. Her vision dimmed. A sharp pain lanced through her right hand, as if she had stabbed herself, even though she had not actually cut into her flesh with the blade. Tomoyo could not hold back her cry of surprise.   
  
And then, that something nagging her in the back of her mind fell into place. Indeed, something was off; Eriol's blood was still warm on mirror, sticking to her hands.   
  
Fresh blood.   
  
The blood should have dried by now.   
  
Why wasn't it dry?   
  
Was Eriol not human?   
  
It should have dried...   
  
In the next instant, firm hands roughly grasped Tomoyo's shoulders, slick fingers gripping so mercilessly that they bit into her skin through her clothes, and pulled her up with tremendous strength. Disoriented, with pain shooting through her mind and her shoulders and her hand, Tomoyo didn't realize that she was hurtling through the air until she was well on her way down, when her spine slammed forcefully into her bedpost and her head collided with the unyielding floor.   
  
She thought she saw stars, but the dull ringing in her ears seemed incongruous with the swirling flash of colors before her eyes and the pain shooting through her back. Straining to see what was going on, Tomoyo tried to move, fighting the growing sensation of drowning, and she quickly discovered that she was trapped.   
  
Panic set in.   
  
Something had pinned her arms against her sides as she lay on her back on the cold floor. Something was keeping her from escaping.   
  
And when her vision cleared, Tomoyo was horrified. Nimble fingers--beautiful fingers, she had thought, when they danced so lovingly with the keys of a piano--closed around her neck, trying to squeeze the life out of her lungs. She hadn't considered that these long, elegant fingers of a talented artist might also belong to a murderer. She hadn't believed that his beauty was capable of heinous acts, after all.   
  
Tomoyo's unfocused, unraveling mind recalled a quote about a rose and its thorns before it returned to the fact that this man was crushing her throat.   
  
He was trying to kill her.   
  
And he was winning.   
  
She tried to utter his name, to beg him to see reason, but she was helpless as her flailing limbs were effectively restrained and her heart beat wildly for peace and her lungs screamed violently for air that would not come.   
  
Tomoyo was exhausted. Her vision dimmed even further, and she could no longer clearly see her attacker's handsome face, now distorted into an angry snarl. She couldn't even see the intensity in his blue eyes anymore, but she felt strangely gratified that she could at least see the familiar glint of light reflecting from his glasses.   
  
This monster attacking her was only the shadow of the beautiful man she had known once. Somehow, this observation was reassuring to Tomoyo. At least, her dying mind reasoned, this man murdering her wasn't the Eriol she knew. The Eriol she loved. The Eriol who was once her friend.   
  
Tomoyo's last thoughts were very strange, very random, very confused, but one fleeting, unexpected thought amidst the chaos struck a strong chord in her heart and her mind.   
  
*This might have been more tragic had they been in love.*   
  
Darkness claimed her.   
  
  
  
-= End Part Three =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: December 17, 2002   
Chapter Finished: January 21, 2003   
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003   
  
End Notes:   
OOC? Definitely! But please understand there's a reason for characters being out of character. I mean, although none of us can say how the CCS kids would act as adults, we know their personality types. If what happened in the final scenes contradicts these established personalities, there's a reason. ^_^   
  
Also, don't worry if the WAFF/romance factor is virtually non-existent at the moment. In the next chapters, this fic *will* focus more on drama and romance (E/T all the way!) because I'm a sucker for romance. This is just the beginning. o_O   
  
~~ Japanese Translations ~~   
Kami-sama – God   
arigatou gozaimasu – thank you (polite)   
hoe (pronounced HO-EH) – Sakura's general expression which has no meaning and may be used in a variety of occasions   
(i.e. "Sakura?"   
"Hoe?"   
"I'm pregnant."   
"Hoe!?"   
"With Tomoyo's love child."   
"HOEEE!?!?"   
"And Li-kun is pregnant, too. Congratulations!"   
"HOEEEEE!!!")   
m'shim'shi or moshi moshi – hello (used only on the phone)   
Onii-chan – older brother (informal)   
'Nii-chan – older brother, shortened version (informal)   
kaijuu – monster, Touya's affectionate nickname for his little sister   
nani – what   
sumimasen – I'm sorry—usually involving a debt that one cannot repay   
  
  
Please review and direct all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


	4. Forward

Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal stuff can be found in Part One.   
  
Reviewers: Again, thanks to the people who reviewed, and the people who consistently review! (I'm getting around to emailing reviewers back, finally... ^_^)   
  
Author's Notes:   
This is the longest chapter yet, and it clarifies much of what happened since the first chapter. However, this chapter was caught between the midterm *and* flu seasons, so I apologize for the extremely long delay. Oh well. Such is life.   
  
About Chapters:   
There will be approximately ten chapters (including the Epilogue) of "Falling," but that's subject to change. I have this strange tendency to write a lot... ^_^ I aim to finish before the end of this year, and that's actually fast... for me.   
  
Chapter Warning:   
Profanity and mild violence. Foreshadowing of dark, R-rated stuff to come. Mwahahaha...   
  
Enjoy!   
  
~ Dark Rune   
  
  
  
------------------------------------------------------   
"Love is not blind; it sees more, not less.   
But because it sees more, it is willing to see less."   
~ Julius Gordon   
------------------------------------------------------   
  
  
-= Part Four: Forward =-   
  
  
It started out as a slight headache, the kind he remembered getting when he was just a young boy, when he stayed at the wildly spinning merry-go-round too long, or when he felt the cool, somewhat ominous presence of a spirit nearby. Usually, it was just a mild, fleeting state of mind.   
  
Nothing to worry about.   
  
But 31-year-old Kinomoto Touya was obviously no longer a kid who had clung to the merry-go-round too long, and he no longer possessed the ability to perceive the spirits of the lingering dead.   
  
The headache got worse.   
  
So it was definitely something he grew worried about.   
  
"Shit," he muttered under his breath, willing the headache to go away.   
  
As Touya and Yue, seated tensely in Touya's speeding car, came closer to Tomoyo's apartment, they sensed the pull of evil magic growing at an alarming rate. Touya, having never felt something so insidious, was unprepared for the invisible claws digging slowly into his mind, into his *soul*, dragging him viciously towards a distant evil that only seemed to get stronger with time. He was sure Yue felt the same, horrifying pull, only magnified tenfold because Yue was magically stronger, and as the sense of extreme urgency increased, each man silently fought the urge to squirm.   
  
Touya was sweating. He was not the kind of man who sweat profusely, even when he was panicking, because he never panicked and on the rare occasion that he *did* panic, he never showed anything. But now he was worried, and he was sweating, and he was driving at ungodly speeds. He was surprised that his palms, already slick with sweat, hadn't yet slipped off the steering wheel.   
  
Touya was not amused.   
  
And even as he drove, his headache grew worse, as if a drill were being inserted delicately into his forehead for maximum effect. Frustrated, he looked to Yue to see how his companion was holding up, hoping to get a glimmer of how to calm himself down.   
  
Of course, Yue, being Yue, maintained a stoic expression, yet as Touya drove crazily through the afternoon Tokyo traffic, he caught glimpses of concern in the guardian's eyes--definitely *not* a comforting sign.   
  
"Shit," Touya again grumbled under his breath. Biting his lip, he tried to concentrate on driving, but his recklessness reminded him of what he simply refused to acknowledge; he was panicking.   
  
"Do you have any idea what this magic is?" Touya asked, almost desperately, aware that his actions probably would have amused Yukito. After all, he, Kinomoto Touya, was trying to start a conversation with *Yue*, the personification of apathy.   
  
Damn, he thought wryly. Definitely panicking.   
  
Yue's frown deepened. "I don't know what it is, but it feels familiar... as if... I *should* know it."   
  
Yue fell silent, turning his head to stare darkly outside, and Touya matched Yue's glowering look with his own. Yue was not a man of many words, but what he said was usually of some importance.   
  
"Well, I hope you figure it out soon because we're almost there," Touya commented as he swerved the car sharply, his foot never even touching the brakes, which caused Yue and an assortment of heavy office supplies in the backseat to slam loudly against the side of the car. Touya hardly noticed. "Think we can beat whatever it is?"   
  
As Yue impassively peeled himself off the car door, he made an indiscernible sound that Touya didn't bother to translate. A disgruntled sound, as opposed to a nod of Yue's head, was enough to show his concern.   
  
"God, I hope we're not too late," Touya said through gritted teeth.   
  
"We're not," Yue assured him in a dark, dead monotone. "Yet."   
  
Touya didn't respond, knowing how doing so usually generated bad luck. They spent the rest of the drive in tense silence, broken only occasionally by screeching tires whenever Touya turned while absolutely refusing to acknowledge the existence of car brakes. Perhaps Touya's disregard for safety hastened the trip; to Touya, it felt as if he had blinked and found himself at Tomoyo's place a split second later.   
  
As he released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, he was surprised to catch Yue doing the same, and only then did Touya realize how unbelievably fast he had been driving. The distance from Tokyo University to Tomoyo's apartment should have taken three quarters of an hour to cover, but Touya--probably with some magical help from Yue--had covered it in a record-breaking twenty minutes. Even so, both men felt that time was far too long because every second mattered.   
  
Parking in front of Tomoyo's apartment building took thirty seconds. Running into the apartment building took fifteen seconds. Opening the door took five seconds, because Touya had to enter the code to get into the building.   
  
All the while, an inner voice feverishly urged him to hurry, hurry because if they got there even a second late Tomoyo would pay the ultimate price and Tomoyo, beautiful, sweet, kind Tomoyo, did not deserve this evil.   
  
Click.   
  
The door opened, and Touya's instincts took over. Once inside, they charged directly towards the stairs, the feeling of deadly urgency practically screaming at all of their senses, but Touya knew he couldn't stop to breathe because his little sister was depending on him and his other little sister who knew no magic needed him.   
  
The mad dash towards the stairs took five seconds, and Touya got there a split second before Yue so he flung open the door to the stairwell. Without missing a beat, Yue rushed inside after Touya, unfolded his wings, picked the other man up by his upper arms, and flew them both up to the top floor.   
  
That flight took another five seconds.   
  
Sprinting down the hall towards Tomoyo's apartment door took three more seconds.   
  
And because they were so close to the source of the magical disturbance, Touya and Yue both felt it at its worst--the coldest, vilest feeling of unforgiving hatred emanating from behind the door. Touya pushed aside the sudden urge to empty the contents of his stomach and surged forward.   
  
Yue, now flying, sped ahead and easily broke the heavy oak door down, and in the next instant, Touya was already inside the apartment, past the fallen door, past Yue, heading straight for Tomoyo's bedroom. He hardly noticed that the feeling of unspeakable evil had mysteriously vanished, because the door was open.   
  
Touya skidded to a halt in Tomoyo's doorway, almost falling over in shock. It took his brain a full five seconds to register what his eyes were seeing, because he had to convince himself twice that what he was seeing was actually there.   
  
No. Freaking. Way.   
  
"HIIRAGIZAWA!?" Touya cried, finally recognizing his brother-in-law's best man, who was now without his glasses and sporting bandages around his head. "What the hell are *you* doing here!?"   
  
Hiiragizawa Eriol was kneeling on the floor, facing the door, cradling Tomoyo's head in his lap. Her long, dark curls spilled over his arm supporting her neck and spread on the floor, her peaceful face tilted up towards Eriol's, and the rest of her body stretched lifelessly to Eriol's side.   
  
And there was blood.   
  
It smeared what little was exposed of her neck up to her chin, and her face appeared infinitely paler in contrast with the disconcertingly vibrant crimson.   
  
Eriol was forlorn, hardly even able to put together a recognizable sentence. "I... I didn't... I tried to..."   
  
That didn't explain very much, and Touya was already perilously close to committing murder. He didn't appreciate Hiiragizawa's apparently guilty incoherence.   
  
"You TRIED!?" Touya bellowed, his vision clouding with rage, not seeing Yue, who was now standing beside him. Touya strode to Eriol, grabbed the Englishman by the collar, and violently pulled him up, only half-aware that Yue had taken Tomoyo just the instant before.   
  
With Tomoyo safely in his arms, Yue carefully backed away from Touya and the reincarnation of his former master, his eyes betraying sadness. No one saw that flicker of emotion, and it was the only thing for which Yue could be grateful.   
  
"You bastard," Touya spat, his face centimeters from Eriol's, but Eriol was too far-gone to care. Perhaps they both were. "She couldn't stand a chance against you... You manipulative bastard."   
  
"I..."   
  
"You killed her, didn't you?" Touya choked, red with anger. "You bastard... you KILLED her!"   
  
An expression of pure sorrow crossed Eriol's face, and he closed his eyes. "Yes, I... I did," Eriol chuckled bitterly. "That's all I *can* do."   
  
Touya felt a surge of magical power flowing unexpectedly inside of him, shooting outward to his fingertips, and then all he could think about was finding a way to release that furious energy somehow. The last thing that Touya and Eriol would coherently remember of that scene was the sickening crack of Touya's knuckles connecting solidly with Eriol's face and an explosion of overwhelming power.   
  
It was bliss for both of them.   
  


* * *

  
  
He's a selfish jerk. You shouldn't treat him so kindly. Hiiragizawa doesn't deserve your gentleness.   
  
But he's my friend, and he's been my friend for so long...   
  
Friends don't say hurtful things like that. He was doing it to spite you.   
  
No, he wasn't himself. Don't you see? He was lost, confused, insecure, and hurting so much...   
  
Being weak and pitiful doesn't give him the right to hurt others. To hurt you. He knows how much he means to you. He knows how much you care for him.   
  
I'm his friend. He needs someone to support him through this.   
  
At the expense of your own sanity? You really think you can make him happy before you go insane yourself?   
  
I won't fall. I won't. I'm stronger than that. I've gotten stronger. I'm stronger than before.   
  
You won't make him happy. You can't. Only one person could have and she's dead.   
  
I'm willing to try. I can't be who she was, but I can be someone who cares. Maybe that will be enough.   
  
He will break you. You *will* crumble under the pressure. Look at you now!   
  
No... I...   
  
Even if you *do* manage to give him back his life, at what expense will it be to yours? You know he can never love you the way you want him to. He's not capable.   
  
No... I can... I don't... I don't love him that way...   
  
Even if he ends up being worth it as a friend, *you'll* end up paying dearly again. Isn't that why you never got close to anyone? Because you knew everyone would hurt you? That's what humans do, after all. They're cruel, even to angels who could be their salvation.   
  
No...   
  
Just think about it. As a friend, he's not worth it. He's cruel. Heartless. A wreck of a man who can give you nothing.   
  
He's not... He can't wallow in misery forever.   
  
She was his soulmate. Didn't you know? How will he pull through without his soulmate? He can't. It's impossible.   
  
But...   
  
And it's not just him. He's not the only one who's wrong. It's you. You, trying in vain to replace his soulmate. That will drive you to suicide because you know you can never achieve the impossible goal. You always believed in 'happily ever after.' Something you believe in so strongly will surely kill you. Something you feel so strongly will kill you. It will drive you mad to know he will never return your feelings. You've experienced all this once before. Are you sure you want to take that fall again?   
  
I...   
  
It's a deeper fall than before, you know, and look how easily Sakura brought you to the edge. If it hadn't been for Hiiragizawa...   
  
Yes... Yes. That's it. Eriol-kun helped me through my worst times and still accepted me for who I was, so I should help him through his worst times, no matter the cost to me!   
  
No... Think about it! If Sakura almost killed you, then he will certainly succeed where she failed. You only lived because she is your sister, who loves you still, and you grew up, and he helped you to survive. But Hiiragizawa has much more power over you now, and his rejection *will* kill you because you have no one left to turn to.   
  
It can't kill me...   
  
He tried to physically kill you. Is that not enough? Do you want more proof that he can destroy you physically and emotionally? You must choose now. If you choose to die, all will be well. If you choose to live, then you must push him away, hurt him as he hurt you, and only then can you live. There is no other way. Anything else can only end in your suffering.   
  
No... I can't...   
  
You have no choice.   
  
There must be another way...   
  
There is no other way.   
  
Those can't be my only options...   
  
Yes. Yes, they are. Die or push him away. Those are the only two paths open to you. What will you say?   
  
I choose...   
  
Peace in death?   
  
I choose...   
  
Independence?   
  
Why?   
  
Because it's the only way. You must choose now.   
  
Then... I choose...   
  
Choose?   
  
...neither.   
  
You... you can't.   
  
I will make my own path.   
  
You won't survive!   
  
I will   
  
You won't survive!   
  
NO! No...   
  
I know you better than you imagine. Listen to me!   
  
No... no... Who *are* you?   
  
*I* am your conscience.   
  
No... You can't... You're not... I would never do this. Why are you making me do this? I wouldn't do ANY of this!   
  
...   
  
...   
  
Isn't it obvious who I am? I'm you.   
  
You're... you *can't* be me. I would never say those things. I would never think those things. I would never... I would never...   
  
... smart, smart girl...   
  


* * *

  
  
The second voice faded, becoming a mere whisper of a memory in the infinite expanse of the mental plane. There was silence for a heartbeat.   
  
Realizing that she hadn't been alone in her mind, that someone had been watching her, stalking her, making her think things that made her blood run cold, Tomoyo screamed.   
  
A light blinded her, and she knew no more.   
  


* * *

  
  
The bedroom window was open, Touya noted absently as he stared, mesmerized, across the room at the drapes billowing softly in the light breeze. Why would Tomoyo open that window in this strangely cool weather, and why would she open that window when she lived on the top floor?   
  
The mysteries would never end, and Touya had to concede that life rarely made sense, after all. Why would Hiiragizawa kill Tomoyo, anyway? It wasn't fair such a beautiful person had to die, but that didn't matter to Touya anymore because he would make sure the arrogant, smirking, manipulative bastard would pay for his sins once he regained consciousness, once Touya began his "interrogation", because no one messed with the Kinomoto family and as far as Touya was concerned, Tomoyo was part of the family and Hiiragizawa had signed his death certificate when he decided he could even try to--   
  
"She's alive."   
  
The voice piercing the silence was low, steady, and encouraging.   
  
Touya's head snapped up, his eyes blazing across the room at Yue, who was sitting on the bed next to Tomoyo's still figure, holding her hand while gazing at her face intently.   
  
"Na... nani?" Touya half rose from where he had been sitting against the wall for the past few minutes, thinking of ways to mutilate Hiiragizawa's unmoving form on the floor. Yue had been carefully checking on Tomoyo, cleaning the blood off even as he assessed her condition, while Touya was gloomily guarding Eriol, so Yue's announcement instantly removed the murderous expression on Touya's face.   
  
"She's alive," Yue repeated, his voice betraying something akin to relief.   
  
"But..." Touya didn't know whether he should feel stupid or elated. "What about the blood?"   
  
Yue shook his head, rising from his seat. "It's not hers."   
  
"Then whose...?"   
  
"It's from whoever tried to strangle her," Yue explained, walking solemnly towards Touya. "Apparently, Daidouji-san fought back."   
  
To illustrate his point, Yue held something out as Touya moved to stand. A bloodstained, jagged blade glinted in the palm of Yue's hand, and it took a moment for Touya to realize that it was a piece of broken glass. His gaze quickly flitted to Eriol before returning to Yue.   
  
"She was holding this, and since her own hand wasn't cut, the blood must belong to her attacker," Yue concluded, thoughtfully looking at Eriol.   
  
For a few moments, neither man spoke, and then Touya murmured, "Hiiragizawa's hand is bleeding. That bastard."   
  
Yue frowned, slightly offended that Touya was insulting his former master, but accepting that Touya had some valid reasons. "We cannot jump to conclusions. Given his already injured state, he may have gotten that cut some other way. We can't be too sure if Eriol-san really did try to kill Daidouji-san."   
  
Touya was not nearly as optimistic as Yue where Eriol was concerned. "Hiiragizawa *admitted* it. What more do you want?"   
  
"If you honestly believe his admission of guilt," Yue said solemnly, "why haven't you killed him? You would have done no less for Sakura-san."   
  
Touya hesitated, feeling a stab of doubt in his chest but stubbornly resisting it. He needed to vent, damn it, and he had wanted to wipe the smug look off of Hiiragizawa's face the last time he'd seen him at the wedding. Touya shrugged. "I want answers. *Then* I'll beat Hiiragizawa to a bloody pulp."   
  
Yue stared back at Touya, looking unimpressed.   
  
As if he had heard his name, Eriol groaned softly. When his eyes fluttered open at last, Touya stifled the urge to smack him by cracking his knuckles.   
  
"Morning, sunshine," Touya greeted flatly.   
  
Eriol blinked up at the two men looking down at him, disoriented not for the first time that day; this was rapidly becoming the longest day of his life because of his perpetual confusion. With some effort, he sat up, and everything came back to him when he saw Tomoyo lying quietly in the bed. "Daidouji-san!"   
  
Eriol scrambled to his feet, only to be stopped when Touya and Yue swiftly grabbed Eriol's arms and forcibly pinned him to the wall.   
  
"Not so fast, Hiiragizawa," Touya muttered, while Yue appeared merely unaffected. Still deadly serious, however, both maintained their steely grips on Eriol's upper arms. "You just tried to kill her. You think we'd let you finish the job?"   
  
"Kill... Finish...?" Eriol blinked, looking bewildered for a few moments. Suddenly his face broke into a wide grin, as if he had just reached the most brilliant conclusion. "She's alive?"   
  
"Eh?"   
  
"Daidouji-san's alive!" Eriol breathed heavily, sagging against the wall in tired relief. "Thank goodness... I really thought I was too late."   
  
"What the hell are you talking about? Too late for what?" Touya frowned, now confused. He cautiously released Eriol, prompting Yue to do the same, and his doubts about Eriol's guilt quickly resurfaced.   
  
Even as Eriol leaned against the wall wearily, however, he appeared equally frustrated, and more than a little depressed, absently rubbing his arms where Touya and Yue had gripped him so painfully. "I thought I'd come too late to save her."   
  
Eriol was met with only suspicion and distrust when he gathered enough courage to look back up at them.   
  
"Save her from what?" Yue finally spoke up.   
  
Surreptitiously rubbing away the unexpected tears of relief blurring his vision, Eriol met each of their expectant stares as he carefully considered his response. There was nothing he could honestly say that would not anger them, but then there was nothing left to reveal but the truth.   
  
"Hiiragizawa, answer the question," Touya ordered gruffly, folding his arms across his chest. "Just what were you trying to save her from?   
  
Eriol sighed, closing his eyes. "Me."   
  
Touya was not amused.   
  


* * *

  
  
Tomoyo stirred at the sound of several male voices conversing outside her bedroom. They seemed familiar somehow, but she couldn't understand why she would be such a bad hostess and leave her guests outside while she slept in her room.   
  
"...curse..."   
  
For some reason, that word felt significant, and it stood out in the jumble of speech that she could hardly decipher as she half-dreamed.   
  
"...magic..."   
  
That was right. Sakura-chan had called about some evil magic coming after her.   
  
"...don't understand why..."   
  
Funny how she didn't understand anything either.   
  
"...has nothing to do with me..."   
  
Funny how that anguished voice sounded absurdly like Eriol's.   
  
Funny how everything hurt as if she had been badly beaten up.   
  
When the strangeness of it all finally registered in Tomoyo's mind, she shot up in bed, wide-eyed, and stared at her bedroom door. She distinctly remembered Eriol...   
  
Glasses glinting in the sunlight...   
  
Attacking her.   
  
She winced as the bruises on her back and neck made themselves known. What was going on? Who else was in her apartment? Why was Eriol still there, and how did she survive his attack? Tomoyo sat up, trying to clear the pounding in her head and the painful tightness in her chest. She had to figure out what to do. She had resolved to help Eriol, after all, but she couldn't do that if he tried to kill her again, so she had to convince him not to murder her first.   
  
Tomoyo grimaced. Why did everything sound more plausible and make more sense when she was dreaming?   
  
With some difficulty, she stood, and, after swaying unsteadily for a few seconds, she staggered towards the door. Of course there was no sense in prolonging her own suffering, so, unfocused as she was, she might as well get this over with. She turned the knob and stepped out, bracing herself for what she would see, and froze.   
  
Abruptly, the conversation she had been straining to hear stopped.   
  
"Touya-san? Yue-san?" she whispered, suddenly elated to see people she trusted. Then again, she had trusted Eriol, hadn't she? He had tried to kill her...   
  
But then her eyes met his, and the events of the last few hours came back in a heady rush. She remembered everything--the words they had spoken so bitterly, his cruelly smiling face as he tightened his fingers around her neck...   
  
"Daidouji-san..."   
  
Why couldn't she resist?   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
Why couldn't she ignore him? Her practical side was screaming for her to run, run as far away as possible, but she couldn't move, couldn't even look away, because she was being drawn towards him. He rose to his feet hesitantly and stepped forward. She suddenly noticed that neither Touya nor Yue were trying to stop him, and she became even more perplexed.   
  
Eriol stepped closer to her. "Daidouji-san... I..."   
  
Was that concern in his eyes? Sincerity? Regret? Sorrow?   
  
He took another step forward, and she instinctively stepped back.   
  
Hurt?   
  
Before she could react again, he moved. In a flash, he was in front of her, and she gasped--whether in terror or disbelief, she wasn't sure--and then he swept her up in his arms, holding her tightly against his chest, completely destroying all the polite barriers that they had put up around each other, against each other, since the moment he appeared battered on her doorstep. She was only marginally aware that he was saying something very softly to her, with his breath warm and soothing next to her ear, but she remained still even as he tightened his grip. Finally, when she felt a drop of liquid warmth falling, brushing her cheek with silent regret, she was startled into reality.   
  
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."   
  
He was crying?   
  
Why was he crying?   
  
And she was suddenly aware that *she* was crying, not him, and she muffled her tears into his shoulder, sobbing with relief that he was all right and she was all right, and happiness that she was being hugged by a friend she cared for so much and that she could hug him in return, and she was relieved because she didn't have to be afraid of him since he wasn't going to kill her, and she felt safe in his arms, and it was wonderful to know that, at the very least, she *did* mean something to him after all--   
  
"I'm so sorry... so, so sorry... Daidouji-san, I'm so sorry..." he was whispering, between gasps of air. "After everything you've done for me, I shouldn't have upset you, and I tried to protect you... I thought I was too late, but I promise I'll protect you from now on because I didn't save her, and I didn't save you, and I wish I'd saved her. I miss her so much, and I couldn't let it happen all over again, not to you... because you don't even..."   
  
"Sshh," Tomoyo interrupted, knowing she couldn't bear to hear him say anything more. "Please. Stop apologizing."   
  
She pulled away slightly, looking up at him, effectively stopping his babbling and forcing him to pay attention to her. His hands remained on her shoulders, and she kept hers on his back, and they stood still for a time, staring at each other wordlessly, questioningly, hesitantly.   
  
But his eyes were beautiful, Tomoyo decided. Clear and deep. And she knew.   
  
When Tomoyo smiled at last, even Touya and Yue, only distant observers now, felt warmth instantly fill the room.   
  
"Yokatta..." she murmured happily as she reached up with her right hand to gently caress Eriol's cheek. "I'm so glad. You're not wearing your glasses, Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
Still feeling regretful and woefully inadequate, Eriol needed a moment to figure out what she was talking about. "Of course," he responded, relieved as the point she was making dawned on him. Finally having the courage match her smile, he leaned down and enveloped her in another warm hug. "Of course... I forgot. He was wearing glasses... and I broke mine in England... Of course..." His voice lowered to a half-joking rumble. "You're so smart, Daidouji-san. I was so afraid you wouldn't believe in me... What would I do without you?"   
  
"You'd be hopeless," she returned his hug, a light-hearted smile on her face as she cherished the contact. But now that her suspicions were alleviated, self-consciousness returned to them, and Eriol blushed as he pulled respectfully away from the woman who had saved him.   
  
Even as she shakily wiped the tears from her face with her sleeves, Tomoyo knew her pale complexion gave her own embarrassment away, but she also knew they had to sort out their emotions before they could move forward. Deciding that their polite routine could wait, she reached out and took his hand.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, thank you. You saved my life," she whispered. "And you weren't too late, so please don't blame yourself for anything. Just... thank you for being there for me."   
  
He looked flustered, and doing that to someone as self-assured as Eriol was definitely no small feat, even when he was this vulnerable. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to keep him from hurting you at all. If I hadn't been such a self-absorbed idiot, I would have sensed him..."   
  
"Stop," she said firmly, raising a hand to his lips to silence him. "You have a lot of issues to deal with, Hiiragizawa-kun. Don't even try to feel like an inconvenience because you have every right to be self-absorbed right now, okay?"   
  
"I suppose..." his flippant smile returned, yet it was weak. "But as a powerful sorcerer who must valiantly save the globe, I really should pay attention to more important matters, shouldn't I? Instead of wallowing around in misery, I should be looking out for danger..."   
  
Tomoyo shook her head, unconsciously rubbing the back of his hand with her thumb. "Mizuki-sensei was... *is*... important to you. Your guardians are important to you. And I understand that they're important. You can't move on without being at peace with yourself first, Hiiragizawa-kun." She smiled sadly, and her tone became hushed. "You taught me that."   
  
He stayed silent for a few seconds, regarding her thoughtfully. Then, he said, in a low, serious tone, "I'm glad you're all right... I don't think I would have forgiven myself if you died because of me. You have nothing to do with this, nothing to do with me. It's not fair you're even involved."   
  
She wanted to say so many different things, to point out how inextricably she was tied to him, even if he wasn't tied to her, but she couldn't. She knew she wouldn't even dent the chains that Kaho had already wrapped around his heart, binding his soul, so she didn't try.   
  
"Maybe... maybe you should explain everything from the beginning," Tomoyo suggested. "I'm drawing conclusions based on everything... everyone... I've seen. If you tell me everything, then we can decide what's really going on." She paused, wondering if she should push her luck. "You *do* remember everything that happened before... don't you, Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  
Eriol appeared startled, and then he quickly looked away.   
  
"That's why you smashed my mirror... because you were so angry just looking at your reflection and seeing *him*," Tomoyo continued in a whisper. "You remember."   
  
Eriol stepped back, unable to meet her eyes. "Hai... I remember a lot, now. Not everything, but... just enough to know."   
  
"Then tell me," she said warmly, taking his hand into hers again and pulling him towards the couches where Touya and Yue patiently sat. "Tell us. Let me decide why I *am* involved, and together," she tilted his face gently to look at her, "we can figure out how to fight him."   
  
She could feel Eriol's uncertainty and his guilt, but his determination was palpable when he spoke at last. As he turned to Tomoyo, the rest of the world melted away with the intensity of his emotions so that only the two of them existed at that moment. "I couldn't protect her," he admitted at last, softly, "but I promise I will protect you, Daidouji-san. This is my responsibility, and I won't let you get hurt just for knowing me. And maybe with your help, I can beat this..."   
  
"Of course," Tomoyo nodded, again fighting the urge to correct him, to tell him he was close to her heart, even if he had drifted so far that he could no longer see her as an essential part of his life.   
  
This was the path she had chosen, after all.   
  
She would save him, even if he killed her.   
  


* * *

  
  
Since Sakura had called her older brother, neither she nor Syaoran could think about anything other than what was happening in Japan. They tried to get on with their lives and take care of the things that needed to be done before they left, but it was impossible to concentrate. Every five minutes, one or the other was hovering within leaping distance of the phone, distracted and mentally willing it to ring. It was hard to sense anything from Tokyo, as they were living far away, and they couldn't, in good conscience, distract Touya or Yue by calling them on Touya's cell phone just to have full, live coverage of what was going on.   
  
So they were resigned to wait. Maybe get some work done. But it was no use trying to fool themselves into getting anything worthwhile finished, so in the end, Sakura and Syaoran gave up all pretense of accomplishing anything productive and settled uneasily into the couch, talking in low, somber murmurs.   
  
When the phone finally rang a little over an hour later, Sakura and Syaoran were wound up so tightly that they aggressively pounced for the receiver at the same time.   
  
Unfortunately, Sakura was shorter and closer, while Syaoran was faster and had a longer reach.   
  
The result? A rather loud collision between the top of Sakura's head and Syaoran's nose.   
  
"Oh fu--" Syaoran began to swear, but his sharp mind processed that he was within Sakura's (and by extension, the baby's) hearing range, so, blushing hotly, he quickly switched languages and finished the swear word in Cantonese.   
  
He need not have bothered, because Sakura was too wound up and preoccupied with her own simultaneous pained cry to hear his. "Itai!"   
  
Of course, when the phone rang for the second time, they were smart enough to reach for the speakerphone button instead of the receiver, but they still insisted on each going for it at exactly the same time.   
  
The result? Another rather loud collision between the top of Sakura's head and Syaoran's nose.   
  
"Shi--"   
  
"--tai!"   
  
So on the third ring, Sakura wildly grabbed her husband's arm and held up her other hand in an obvious gesture for him to stop. Then, she calmly proceeded to hit the speakerphone button herself, with her breath caught in her throat.   
  
"Hello!" greeted a cheerful male voice. "This is John Chang from the Bank of Hong Kong! May I speak to a Mr. or Mrs. Ke...no...ma...to... regarding our new low interest rates?"   
  
For a second, there was a very pained silence.   
  
And then, all hell broke loose in the Li household.   
  
"DIE YOU BASTARD!!!" Syaoran thundered, having already unsheathed his sword, and he swung it in a vicious, downward arc. His voice didn't sound as threatening as usual, given that it now boasted an unusual nasal quality, but his words carried all the meaning.   
  
"HOOOEEEEEEE!!!" Sakura agreed furiously with her husband, having already released the Sword Card, and she brought down her weapon with as much graceful savageness as she had been taught. Sakura and Syaoran made a formidable, amazingly synchronized team, after all.   
  
*CRASH*!   
  
The Li family servants, after much scrambling and flustered nodding, had a new phone installed only five minutes later.   
  


* * *

  
  
His breath came in pained gasps as he swore profusely.   
  
Damn. DAMN!   
  
He had almost finished Her off. He was *so* close. If only his Other Self hadn't interfered... everything would have been perfect. He had carefully coordinated his attack so that his Other Self would have been far from Her, after the way he had treated Her, but his Other Self had remained too close, close enough to come to Her rescue.   
  
The figure growled at the memory, even as he wound through the shadows of a dirty alley, and he winced as his swift pace stressed his still raw wounds. He hadn't realized that his Other Self had so much power left, enough to push him away like that. At this point, both of them were severely weakened, but he had believed he would have won after releasing that intense stream of dark energy. His Other Self was miserable to the point of being insignificant in a fight, so that stream of power should have obliterated him.   
  
What had happened? How did his Other Self regain so much strength overnight?   
  
Shit.   
  
Vision swimming, the figure stumbled over a pile of trash and groggily reached for something—anything--to steady himself. Clinging to a dumpster sitting against the side of a decrepit building, he paused, breathing heavily.   
  
Why? What exactly did his Other Self have that he didn't? Why was he stronger?   
  
He kicked the dumpster in frustration, cursing his Other Self.   
  
And then he figured it out.   
  
There *was* no other answer.   
  
It just had to be HER doing.   
  
Smiling at his brilliant deduction, he resumed trudging calmly along the alley, towards a place just out of his Other Self's reach, where he could rest and build his energy and plan his next attack.   
  
SHE must have done something because She was the only one who had come in contact with him since his Other Self had teleported to Tokyo. Somehow, She must have given his Other Self strength... all the more reason to destroy Her. His first instinct had been right; She could not be allowed to live.   
  
He paused again, coughing up blood and disgustedly spitting it out, before he wiped his face with his sleeve and moved on.   
  
His second instinct had also been right.   
  
*Her death might have been more tragic if they were in love.*   
  
"Fuck it!" he fumed. The first woman hadn't been enough to send his Other Self over the edge. Then he had missed his chance to destroy his Other Self by killing Her immediately after the first woman. Now, going by his second instinct, he was forced to wait even longer before he could have another window of opportunity...   
  
He frowned, recalling something.   
She had figured out how to push him out of Her mind. He wasn't sure how She had done that, but She had succeeded. His eyes narrowed. He needed to find another way in. Another way to...   
  
A sharp pain lanced through his head.   
  
DAMN!   
  
He stumbled again, hurting miserably. He was too weak to do anything now, because he had already spent far too much energy blocking out the Mistress of the Cards and the Li and the Mistress's guardians and his Other Self's memories for just one night, and he had expended energy beyond his limits by defending against his Other Self's unexpectedly fierce defense.   
  
He needed an energy source. His Other Self was undisputedly the best source, but he could live on normal humans temporarily. He would have to do more work to get the same amount of power, but it was necessary for his current survival. Perhaps he would even leave clues for his Other Self, so his Other Self would be driven mad with guilt.   
  
Wrapping his cloak tightly about him, he squinted as he reached the other end of the alley and peered out into the main street and the groups of people walking past. The sunlight was bright, but the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings hid him sufficiently.   
  
It wasn't long before he found what he was looking for.   
  
"Ne, Onee-chan, I want sushi! Sushi!" a boy, no more than seven years old, tugged insistently on a young woman's skirt.   
  
"All right, all right. After we go to the bank," she laughed, and her unseen observer smiled. She was the obvious choice; she had such pretty, long, dark hair, such beautiful amethyst eyes. "Is that all right with you?"   
  
"Yay!" the boy squealed, happily clinging to his older sister's hand.   
  
She shook her head sternly. "Just no wasabi for you. I remember the last time you tried it..."   
  
Luxurious, silky, dark hair. Captivating amethyst eyes. A soul brimming with kindness and untapped magic. She was perfect.   
  
Laughing at something he could not hear, the sister and brother entered a shop, their conversation lost in the bustle of the afternoon.   
  
He continued to smile, eyes glinting, half-crazed because he could already smell her delicious blood spilling down his fingers.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Sakura-chan?" the female voice coming through the speakerphone was quiet, unsure, and lacking its usual optimism, but it was unmistakable nonetheless.   
  
"TOMOYO-CHAN! You're all right!" Sakura couldn't help shouting in relief. "We've been so worried about you... We tried calling so many times last night... Are 'Nii-chan and Yue-san there?"   
  
"Hai," Tomoyo replied. "And thank you for asking them to protect me."   
  
Sakura was gripping Syaoran's hand so tightly that he had to shake her arm to get her to loosen her grip. She smiled apologetically at him before continuing to speak. "Syaoran and I were trying to figure out the source of the problem, and we thought Eriol-kun would be able to help, but we never got a hold of him. We don't know where he is, but there's something important you should know..."   
  
"It's all right. Don't worry about Hiiragizawa-kun." A pause. "He's here."   
  
"WHAT!? Oh no... then..."   
  
The Li's needed only a split second to reach the same, horrifying conclusion, and they shouted in unison, "GET AWAY FROM HIM!"   
  
"Hiiragizawa, if you hurt her," Syaoran said menacingly, "best man or not, I swear I'll..."   
  
"Please calm down, both of you," Tomoyo interrupted, gently trying to pacify her concerned best friends. "Hiiragizawa-kun has an important story to tell, and I think you need to listen if you want to help."   
  
At this, Sakura and Syaoran looked at each other with varying degrees of dread and uncertainty. First of all, did Eriol know about Kaho? More importantly, did *Tomoyo* know about Kaho? And why was Eriol in Japan, given the dire circumstances in England?   
  
"Sakura-san, Syaoran-kun," Eriol's deep voice greeted them so quietly, so seriously, that there could be no doubt about the gravity of the situation.   
  
"Eriol-kun?"   
  
"I regret that we must talk again under such unfavorable circumstances..." he sighed, his sorrow easily detected in his grim tone. In that instant, the Lis realized that Eriol already knew, and as much as Syaoran had disliked "that teacher", he couldn't help but feel sorry for Eriol. Sakura only bit her lip, trying to force down the sharp pain rising in her chest and the tears welling in her eyes. It had been depressing enough to hear the disturbing news from Ruby Moon, since Kaho had been a wonderfully kind and dear friend, but Sakura couldn't imagine what Eriol was going through.   
  
And she didn't want to imagine, because she knew she would go insane if she ever lost Syaoran.   
  
"Just... explain what's going on, and we'll do what we can to help," Sakura finally said, and her husband remained quiet.   
  
It took some time for Eriol to muster enough courage to tell what he could remember of his story, but when he finally did, it started to rain, as if the heavens were grieving with him.   
  


* * *

  
  
Eriol was surprised that no one seemed angry at him, or rather at Clow Read, by the time he finished explaining what had happened just that morning and the origins of the Roman curse. Touya had maintained the stoic, calculating look on his face, while Yue, sitting next to him on the long couch, appeared somewhat saddened, perhaps even regretful, knowing he had not done more for his former master. Sakura and Syaoran had stayed silent throughout Eriol's lengthy explanation, and Eriol could only guess that they probably felt pity for him.   
  
For all their silent acceptance, however, it was Tomoyo's reaction that concerned Eriol the most. He felt increasingly guilty about interrupting the perfect life she must have been leading before his arrival and demanding so much of her time and energy. She shouldn't have had to do anything for him in the first place, but she had become his accidental, involuntary lifeline in Kaho's stead, which instantly put her life in serious danger. Already he had hurt her, both physically and emotionally, yet she still seemed to accept him in spite of her own pain. Now, he only hoped that the explanation of his curse would mitigate some of the accusing injustice and loathing she probably felt towards him, and he prayed desperately that she would forgive him for forcing the curse on her.   
  
That was why he was surprised and relieved when he finally turned to look at Tomoyo, sitting next to him on the love seat. He had assumed she would be confused and indignant, as she had a right to be, but instead of exuding even the smallest shred of self-righteous anger, her eyes revealed nothing but honest sympathy and concern for him. Once again, Eriol realized that he had forgotten who, exactly, Daidouji Tomoyo was, and he found himself marveling at what he was discovering about her once again.   
  
Infinite patience, infinite understanding, infinite kindness...   
  
"So," Touya was the first to speak after Eriol fell silent, startling the younger man, but Touya, not noticing Eriol's reaction, asked, "what does the curse have to do with Tomoyo-san?"   
  
Eriol shook his head to clear his thoughts, shrugged, and sighed, leaning back against the cushions. "I honestly don't know."   
  
"But it's your curse, isn't it?" Syaoran's voice came strongly through the speakerphone, and although his words seemed harsh, they were tempered by the unmasked sympathy in his voice.   
  
Eriol's eyes automatically sought Tomoyo's for guidance, and as if she had read his mind, she reached out and took his hand, squeezing it encouragingly.   
  
"I think the proper question would be, 'What happened in England?'" Tomoyo said, gently, her gaze almost searing Eriol, but he knew she was right. He had to answer her question before they got any further, and he shifted uncomfortably when Tomoyo added, "It all began in England, didn't it?"   
  
He looked down at his feet gloomily, and when he spoke, his voice suddenly sounded foreign to his own ears. "Yes. It did."   
  
An uneasy silence took over the conversation as Tomoyo, Sakura, Syaoran, Touya, and Yue waited for Eriol's answer with bated breath. In spite of their desperate need to know, they really didn't want to push Eriol, understanding that if they were in the same situation, and they had lost their beloved, they wouldn't talk for months.   
  
"You don't have to answer now," Tomoyo finally asserted, taking pity on him, and the kindness in her tone strangely compelled Eriol to look back at her. Somehow she gave him strength to move on, instead of keeping him silent, and the motivation refreshed him.   
  
"No," Eriol shook his head. "No. You're right, Daidouji-san. You're right. I can't be quiet forever..." His face showed reluctance even as he took a deep breath. "The sooner we know what happened, the sooner we can figure out why everything happened and how we can beat this."   
  
Eriol didn't know he was nervous until he felt Tomoyo's thumb tracing soothing circles on the back of his trembling hand, and only then did he realize that she had not let go of him yet.   
  
Infinite kindness, infinite patience, infinite strength.   
  
He closed his eyes, his awareness of Tomoyo heightened even as he took his mind back to the events of the day before. He didn't notice his hand was gripping Tomoyo's so tightly that it was hurting her because she didn't stop her calming caress.   
  
"I don't know what exactly triggered the curse," Eriol began, tentatively. "For Clow, the starting point is obvious. The Roman preyed on the hollowness already inside of Clow, trapping him within it. But for me, there's no beginning. I don't understand why the curse didn't affect me for so long."   
  
Eriol was systematically clenching and unclenching his hand, but no one present commented, allowing him his peace. "It was a soul curse, so one would expect it to take effect the moment I was reborn, but it didn't." Eriol paused to consider how much he should reveal next, and decided to avoid personal issues. "Anyway, I... I fell ill Monday night, and I think that's when I sensed something was wrong with the world, as if the balance had been tilted."   
  
In the strange, brief silence that followed, Tomoyo was not the only one who noted that there was more to Eriol's illness than he was letting on, because in all the years they had known him, Eriol had *never* fallen ill. Eriol continued, oblivious to everyone's reactions and concentrating on the grounding presence of Tomoyo's hand clutching his. "I don't remember very much when I was sick, and that lasted about three days. It's a blur, really, but I remember yesterday morning... in England. Ruby Moon and Spinel were out on an errand--I don't remember what--so Kaho..." He paused, and only Tomoyo discerned that he was hiding an important detail.   
  
She caught his eye in silent inquiry, and he seemed to plead with her to let the subject go. She gave his hand another encouraging squeeze, and he continued. "Kaho... looked after me while my guardians were out. I was still recovering, so I slept late that morning, but then... I don't know what time it was... but all at once there was this feeling of... of pure *evil*... overwhelming me. I thought I was going crazy and that it was just a figment of my imagination, but it stayed there, growing stronger and stronger. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I tracked it and found it in my library." He nearly choked on his next, whispered words. "*He* was there. Kaho was there... and..."   
  
Abruptly, Eriol cut off, his eyes widening, as if he had just had an epiphany. Then his mouth twisted into a bitter grin, comprehension dawning on his features, and he leaned forward, pulling away from Tomoyo to rest his elbows on his knees and cover his face with his hands. "Oh God... I just... I just realized..."   
  
He chuckled despairingly, and no one dared to speak. "Kaho," he whispered. "She must have known..." He started laughing, completely unhinged. "That's why she... and I thought... God I'm an idiot!"   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." Tomoyo, unsure of how else to give him reassurance, reached an arm around his shoulders and hugged him, while Touya and Yue watched her with growing suspicion and interest, respectively. "Just... just stop it. That's enough for--"   
  
"No, no," he was still chuckling even as a tear slipped down his cheek, and he wiped it away quickly with his sleeve, as if he could wipe away guilt with it. "No... I just... Kaho must have known about the curse, and I was too dense to see that she knew something before it ever happened. She must have tried to fight him on her own, to spare me because I was still too weak to fight him, and that was why she probably sent Ruby Moon and Spinel on a wild goose chase so they wouldn't get hurt either. I was too weak to support them, and they would have lost if they had tried to fight because I was so weak..." He laughed, his face now buried in his hands, shoulders shivering. "But they're all gone anyway. She was always selflessly foolish like that..."   
  
He fell silent for nearly a minute. When he spoke again, his hushed voice was wavering. "Kaho weakened him. She knew he was there, and she weakened him before I got to him, knowing I would be no match for him in my wrecked state. But she... she..." He shook his head. "It must have taken all of her strength to weaken him just enough so I could finish the job without killing myself, and I didn't even do *that* right. I thought I'd defeated him because he was gone after I cast my final attack spell, and I had nothing left. I had nothing left..."   
  
His voice trailed off, and Tomoyo watched, feeling pathetically useless, as his hands gripped the sofa so hard that he almost tore the material.   
  
"I gave him everything I had, but he survived. I don't know how he did, but I failed to destroy him, and now Kaho is dead and Ruby Moon and Spinel Sun are dead and..."   
  
It was Sakura who interrupted with uplifting news. "Iie, Eriol-kun, don't think that. Nakuru-san and Spinel-san are *not* dead."   
  
His shoulders stiffened. "They... they're not? That's... How did you..?"   
  
"We called England early this morning, and Nakuru-san answered. That's how we knew something was going on," Sakura explained hesitantly, unsure if she could say something more comforting.   
  
For an instant, Eriol smiled in genuine relief, but his smile faded quickly. "That's... good. I thought for sure that they were gone because they didn't come back to help me fight. I suspect Kaho must have had something to do with preventing them from returning until she was done..."   
  
There was silence once again as each person mulled over the latest revelations, and surprisingly, it was Yue who broke the stillness with a question Tomoyo had been longing to ask. "Why did the curse take your form?"   
  
Eriol looked up to stare directly into his former guardian's eyes, and for a moment, Tomoyo thought that Eriol might be angry. But then Eriol replied, his voice devoid of anger and wilting with defeat, "Poetic justice, I suppose."   
  
One of Yue's eyebrows shot up.   
  
"Just remember how the curse was worded," Eriol shrugged. "The curse didn't need to take Clow's form because he was already killing himself, and he would see that very clearly in the end. On the other hand, I was living a mostly ordinary, happy life, with no intention of having it go wrong, so the curse had to take matters into its own hands... as my mirror image." He shook his head. "Because I see myself through a mirror... Isn't that ridiculous?"   
  
Yue said nothing more, retreating into a contemplative shell.   
  
"This all coincides with what Sakura and I sensed last night," Syaoran spoke up. "From what we could tell of the amount of energy you both expended, it must have been an incredibly tough battle."   
  
Eriol didn't respond, replaying the events in his mind.   
  
Kaho.   
  
She had saved him. It had been an incredibly difficult battle, and he would have been dead if Kaho hadn't done anything to weaken his opponent beforehand. Kaho knew...   
  
God he was an idiot.   
  
"But my question really doesn't have anything to do with the fight," Syaoran continued, and Eriol's curiosity was piqued. "I think we all need to know what you did after the battle."   
  
"After?"   
  
"What spell did you cast after you fought him? How did you get to Tokyo so quickly? You would have taken only a few minutes to get from London to Tokyo, if I've got the time frame right. You said you fought him Thursday morning, London time, and that's around the same time we called Daidouji-san not very long before you appeared."   
  
Eriol frowned. "That's actually the part I don't understand either. I... I cast a Roman reunion spell. It was supposed to reunite me with Kaho, no matter where she was, but I must have screwed up somewhere because I ended up here. The first thing I remember after casting the spell was Daidouji-san taking care of me."   
  
Everyone was silent, knowing what the reunion spell must have meant to Eriol at that point. If Kaho were dead, and Eriol had sought to be reunited with her, then...   
  
Tomoyo shuddered to think what would have happened if Eriol's spell had worked. Even though Eriol's death would probably mean the end of the soul curse in *this* lifetime, it would have followed him into the next, and that wasn't exactly the solution she would have chosen.   
  
Eriol's frown only deepened. He had all the details of the curse and its aftermath, however fragmented they were, but there were some things he knew were still not quite right. Some pieces of the puzzle felt as if they were being forced to fit in the wrong way...   
  
"Tomoyo-chan, can you give us your version of events of last night?" Sakura asked, sounding more than a little worried.   
  
Tomoyo nodded, more for her own benefit than anyone else's. "Well, after you called, Hiiragizawa-kun showed up, soaking wet and badly beaten, so I took care of him. This morning, I, um, went to my room to clean up the bathroom because Hiiragizawa-kun accidentally broke the mirror." Eriol shot her a semi-curious, but grateful, look, and she smiled slightly in return. "Anyway, I didn't realize the evil Hiiragizawa-kun was there until I found a shard of glass with blood on it. Just when I figured the blood couldn't have been from the real Hiiragizawa-kun because he had cut himself a while ago, the curse attacked me, and I passed out."   
  
"But I heard her," Eriol picked up where Tomoyo trailed off, "and I came in the room. I found him trying to strangle her, but he was weak still, after the last encounter with me, so I managed to send a spell his way before he escaped out the window."   
  
"From the 15th floor?" Touya interjected incredulously.   
  
Eriol shrugged. "The strength of the curse depends on the strength of the victim. Given that I'm still a fairly decent magician, I'm sure he managed to survive somehow."   
  
"Well, if he's as strong as you, how do you defeat him?" Touya asked, then added with a teasing smirk, "Unless, of course, you're unwilling to reveal your own weaknesses, Hiiragizawa."   
  
Eriol was pleasantly surprised that Touya wasn't trying to kill him and was actually trying to be nice to him. Eriol had, after all, put the honorary Kinomoto sister in danger, and that deserved the most severe punishment. Then he realized that Touya was probably being so lenient because they had something in common after all: Kaho.   
  
"It's not that the curse gains my powers and becomes my equal. In this case, the curse just took my form. The true nature of the curse lies in the person being cursed..." Eriol sighed, running a hand through his unruly dark hair.   
  
"Meaning?" Tomoyo prompted softly.   
  
When Eriol turned to her, she was unnerved by the weariness in his eyes. "Meaning he will do his best to make me miserable," Eriol said. "He told me he feeds off my misery. He becomes stronger the more I suffer. That's why he went after Kaho... because he knew she was..."   
  
Eriol couldn't say anything more, and Tomoyo's heart went out to him.   
  
"Now for the 6.4 million yen question, Hiiragizawa," Syaoran said grimly. "Why is the curse specifically coming after Daidouji-san?"   
  
Tomoyo's heart nearly stopped when she heard the subtle implications of Syaoran's question, and she felt her ears grow hot. She had a few theories of her own, and she figured the others had probably made the same, obvious guesses.   
  
Except Eriol. Thank goodness the man was currently dense as a brick.   
  
"I honestly don't know," Eriol answered, rubbing his temple in genuine confusion while looking apologetically at Tomoyo. "Ever since my reunion spell went wrong, nothing has made sense. It doesn't make sense that the spell would go directly after Daidouji-san because until yesterday, I hadn't spoken with her in months." He sighed, turning his attention back to Tomoyo. "I never meant for you to get involved in this, Daidouji-san, and I'm very, very sorry."   
  
"It's okay," Tomoyo smiled weakly, knowing she was already more involved than Eriol assumed. "Maybe he came after me because the reunion spell accidentally brought you here, and he figured he would come after me because I was the closest at the time."   
  
"That makes sense," Eriol admitted slowly.   
  
"Except we warned Daidouji-san about that thing coming after her *before* you physically got there, Hiiragizawa," Syaoran pointed out.   
  
"Also true..." Eriol frowned, deep in thought. "So why else would the curse go after Daidouji-san?"   
  
Touya and Yue exchanged knowing glances, and Tomoyo could almost see Sakura and Syaoran doing the same thing. Tomoyo felt her face redden even more, and she was *really* glad Eriol wasn't thinking very clearly. After all, everyone else had the very simple and obvious reason pretty much figured out, even if the evidence was non-existent.   
  
"Time will tell," Tomoyo managed to reply, meekly.   
  
Eriol, still oblivious to the possibility that Tomoyo might care for him more than she let on, nodded. "I just hope we find a way to beat it."   
  


* * *

  
  
The rest of Friday was uneventful, thankfully, and Tomoyo took the opportunity to settle work-related issues. Tiredly accepting that Eriol's curse would put her life on hold for what could be a very long time, she resolved to give herself a month-long working vacation. Her subordinates were shocked when they heard from her late that afternoon, but she told them to give her daily updates and contact her in case of emergencies. They complied, given that Daidouji Designs *was* still Tomoyo's company, but they were concerned as well. A vacation wasn't a real vacation if Tomoyo was simply relocating the work to her home, but Tomoyo dismissed her employees' worries on her behalf.   
  
Dinner was a quiet affair, broken briefly by compliments to Touya and Yukito's culinary skills. Touya had enlisted Yukito (after Yue had transformed) to help him in the kitchen, and Tomoyo was delighted because both men were excellent chefs. They had insisted on cooking, generously giving Tomoyo time to rest while Eriol, sitting undisturbed in the room given to him by Tomoyo, presumably meditated to rebuild his strength.   
  
Still, the curse weighed heavily on all of their minds, so Tomoyo wasn't surprised when Touya said that he and Yue would stay up on guard duty that night. Leaving no room for arguments, Touya took the first shift, suggesting that everyone else sleep. In truth, Touya was suspicious of the side effects of Eriol's curse, so he wanted to keep an eye on Eriol, who had been sending suspicious signals from the beginning. Touya had no intention letting Tomoyo or Eriol out of his range of hearing because they were the ones who needed to be watched closely, and until his sister and her gaki husband arrived, he knew he could never be too careful.   
  
When at last everyone had retired to their bedrooms, Touya found himself sitting alone in the darkened living room, frowning at the TV screen. He was tense, expecting another attack any moment, but an hour of watching a funny TV show about a satorare doctor loosened him up tremendously, which was why he fell off the couch when he heard something to shatter the peace.   
  
It was coming from Eriol's room.   
  
In the space of a few seconds, he was on his feet and standing just inside Eriol's room, glaring wildly at shadows cast by the light of the hallway, until he heard the sound again. His eyebrows shot up in surprise when he realized that it was actually Eriol, crying out in his sleep.   
  
But what the young man was unconsciously shouting was an entirely different matter altogether.   
  
"What's wrong?" a soft voice asked behind Touya, and he turned to see Tomoyo standing inside the room, wearing a lavender silk robe, looking very much awake. He guessed she probably had difficulty sleeping, which was why she had arrived there so quickly, but he didn't blame her.   
  
Touya regarded Tomoyo thoughtfully, debating with himself as to how much he should reveal. Eventually, he simply explained, "He was calling for you in his sleep."   
  
Tomoyo appeared surprised, and a faint blush spread enchantingly across her face. Her eyes flitted instantly to Eriol's slumbering form before she self-consciously looked back at Touya. "Oh..." she said, her unconvincing attempt at nonchalance falling flat. "Really."   
  
Touya continued to stare at her, his brow furrowed, his expression stern and calculating.   
  
"I suppose I should just go back to my room then," she casually declared, turning toward the door after another moment of silence.   
  
Just as she stepped through the doorway, Touya said, in a conversational, yet somewhat guarded tone, "I didn't know you were on a first name basis with Hiiragizawa. Did something else happen this afternoon?"   
  
Tomoyo froze. It seemed that she couldn't come up with a response fast enough, and when she did, her reply sounded lame even to her own ears. "We're not. On a first name basis, I mean. And nothing happened."   
  
She blushed, secretly flattered that Eriol had called to her in his sleep, secretly pleased that Eriol had used her first name, and thoroughly discomforted that Touya was the one to find out. She turned to face Sakura's normally stoic older brother and caught the slight tilt at one corner of his mouth.   
  
He spoke, his words dry, "Well, make sure you tell Hiiragizawa that; he apparently doesn't realize the limitations of your relationship."   
  
"H-hai," she smiled, weakly. For some reason, being around Touya always seemed to paralyze her until she finally got used to his presence. Then again, that was probably Tomoyo's general reaction to the Kinomoto family. Even so, a part of Tomoyo realized that maybe their current subject matter was simply too new and uncomfortable--perhaps too personal.   
  
Touya's expression darkened slightly. "If you need me to step in, you know you can just say so, right?" he prodded, his characteristically hidden gentleness now visible in his eyes. "You *are* my honorary little sister, and as such, you're guaranteed me as your bodyguard. I'll happily beat him into an even bloodier mess if you like."   
  
Tomoyo smiled uneasily. Although she had grown into a talented actress over the years, the relatively new topic of her relationship to Eriol unnerved her. She was beginning to discover that she couldn't keep up her emotional barriers so well wherever Eriol was concerned. "Iie. Please don't do that. You've already done so much for me, and Er--ah, Hiiragizawa-kun doesn't deserve the aggravation after all he's been through."   
  
She felt her face redden, knowing that her honorary older brother had caught her verbal blunder as well. Touya actually smiled, and for one brief instant, his smile lit up the room brilliantly. "That's forgiving of you, after all the trouble he put you through..." He paused, eyes sparkling. "You know, you have a beautiful soul, Tomoyo-san."   
  
Was it just her imagination, or were her ears getting as hot as her cheeks? "A-arigatou," she stammered, completely flattered and embarrassed.   
  
Touya finally, mercifully, pulled his discerning gaze away from her and focused it on Eriol's unconscious face. He didn't speak for some time, and neither did she. Both were unwilling to break the silence, knowing its immense value during life's most hectic moments.   
  
Of course, it couldn't last forever, so Touya spoke. "Sometimes, people are blind... blind and stupid," his slightly rueful smirk belied his own experiences. "Sometimes, people don't appreciate what they have because they cling so desperately to what they used to have, and that's just the way human beings work sometimes. They're unaware until it's almost too late..."   
  
"That's true," she whispered in agreement, her gaze following Touya's to land on Eriol.   
  
Neither spoke again for few moments.   
  
Then, "I hope he appreciates you someday soon."   
  
Her hushed response was natural, completely unrestrained by denial or false pretenses. "I hope so too."   
  
Long after Tomoyo had left the room, Touya wondered if she had even heard herself.   
  
  
  
-= End Part Four =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: January 22, 2003   
Chapter Finished: March 18, 2003   
Chapter Revised: August 16, 2003   
  
End Notes:   
I hope I didn't overwhelm everyone with the explanations. Please feel free to e-mail me if you're happy and/or confused and/or irritated and/or thought the chapter was pitifully unfulfilling. ^_^;; I'd love to hear what you think.   
  
One of my favorite scenes (next to Nakuru's wickedly fun phone conversation with Sakura and Syaoran at the end of Part Two) is the Touya-Tomoyo-interaction-in-Eriol's-room-at-night scene. It just hit me the night after I posted Part Three, and I wrote it all down, and it's been intact ever since. O_o I think that's why I'm so fond of it; it was 110% inspiration.   
  
You may have noticed there's quite a bit of Touya and Yue as well. What can I say? I'm fond of bishounen, and I like Touya. ^_^ Plus, he and Yue make handy chaperones (i.e. people who can reduce Eriol to lifeless goo if/when (^_~) Eriol Goes Too Far With Tomoyo).   
  
About Kaho:   
I *like* Kaho.   
  
Now I don't like her as much as Tomoyo or Eriol, but still... A lot of people, mostly E/T fans (surprise, surprise), hate her, but if you look objectively at the anime or manga, you notice there's actually NOTHING wrong with her outside her tendency to like younger males (and Eriol is NOT truly younger)... but that's another subject.   
  
In fact, Kaho is a wonderful person, one you would probably instantly like if you met her in real life, and I portray her as such. Eriol will have difficulty getting over her, if he gets over her at all, and Tomoyo, as wonderful as Tomoyo is, will have difficulty living up to Kaho's memory. So please keep this in mind as the E/T relationship progresses...   
  
~~ Japanese Translations ~~   
yokatta – I'm glad   
itai – ouch   
ne – (in context) hey; a word one might say to catch someone's attention (Sample English Counterparts: "Say, did you see that flying emu, Touya-san?" or "Hey, Tomoyo-chan, is Eriol-kun really pregnant?")   
onee-chan – older sister (informal)   
gaki - brat   
satorare – transparent (I think)   
OT Note: Touya is watching this wonderfully funny Japanese dorama called "Satorare". Basically, it's about a doctor who doesn't know he has a disease that allows his thoughts to be broadcast to anyone within a 10-meter radius. Hence, he is "transparent". And hilarity ensues. ^_^   
  
I highly recommend this show, provided you find it in your area. It's the funniest, fluffiest show I've seen in a long time.   
  
Please review and direct all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


	5. Because You Fell

Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal stuff can be found in Part One.   
  
Reviewers: A great big hug and thank you, once again, to all of you! ^_^ I can't emphasize enough how you keep me going, so please drop me a line if you have the time. And no, I'm not really trying to rhyme. Ugh.   
  
Author's Notes:   
After watching Slayers NEXT and TRY, I found myself obsessed with Xelloss/Filia, which is why I actually started to write *another* fic in spite of my promise to myself to NEVER write more than one story at a time. Oh well. My X/F downward-spiral-into-madness and my midterms (gag!) added to the delay of writing this chapter, so I'm sorry to keep everyone waiting. I'm aiming to crank out at least one chapter per month... (crosses fingers)   
  
This part isn't quite as long as the previous two (which were *massive*) but it's close. Now on with the show! ^_^   
  
Chapter Warning:   
Profanity and harsh violence. The latter is definitely not for the weak of heart (and stomach).   
  
~ Dark Rune   
  
  
---------------------------------------------------   
"The dead cannot cry out for justice;   
it is a duty of the living to do so for them."   
- Lois McMaster Bujold   
---------------------------------------------------   
  
  
-= Part Five: Because You Fell =-   
  
  
He remembered that night, just a little over a week ago. He hadn't understood her cryptic remarks then, but they all made sense now.   
  
"Eriol?" Kaho had murmured so softly that he had thought she might be half-asleep already.   
  
"Hmm?" he replied, shifting comfortably in the bed to envelop her more tightly in his embrace. Her back was to him, and they were lying on their sides, spooned together, so he couldn't read her expression. He could only guess at her emotions through her voice.   
  
"I have... I have some really strange questions for you," she had admitted hesitantly, and Eriol had only briefly wondered why.   
  
He had smiled, his eyes closed. "We *are* unusual people, so we naturally ask strange questions. What's your question?"   
  
"Just don't think too much of it," she had warned, and so he hadn't.   
  
Until now.   
  
Until now, he hadn't realized how important that question was to Kaho. Had he really been that blind to her emotions?   
  
But Eriol couldn't cry anymore; he had already shed enough tears.   
  
"I won't," he had promised her easily.   
  
"All right." Her shoulders had relaxed, and he had not stopped to ask why. "As Clow Read, you knew everything, right?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
A beat.   
  
"How much do you remember now?"   
  
He had given his answer genuine thought. "Just glimpses, really, of life here and there. The only solid block of memory I have is of how the Clow Cards were supposed to work, because that was all related to Sakura-san... I remember all of my magic, and so I'm gifted with Clow's mastery of sciences, mathematics, and languages... But outside of magic, Clow wanted me to start fresh. The knowledge I possess now may seem like a lot, but it's only a very insignificant fraction of what Clow actually knew."   
  
Another pause.   
  
"But since Clow knew everything, he predicted the day of his death, right?"   
  
"Of course."   
  
"So how did he... do you remember how Clow dealt with it?"   
  
"I... he... was happy. Happy to be free from having too much magic and too much knowledge... By then, I think he realized that having all the knowledge is best left to God."   
  
"He just... accepted his death?"   
  
"Yes. But he didn't just sit back and say, 'Okay. Today I'm going to die. I'll just sit here and have a cup of tea.' Clow knew what would happen and prepared, as best as he could, for everything that would take place after his death. He understood that even after he died, the world must go on. What matters the most is the future we give our children. The future we give our loved ones."   
  
If he had known to look, Eriol probably would have seen glimmers of tears in Kaho's eyes. He could still hear the profound sadness in her voice. "I suppose Clow was right, wasn't he? He may have been a foolish boy once, but he grew into a wise man."   
  
He had not asked how Kaho knew that Clow had been a foolish youth, and a moment of silence passed before Eriol had ventured to ask his own question. "So why are you suddenly so curious about Clow's death?"   
  
"Iie. I'm not really curious about his death... I was just... I was just wondering how he could handle knowing he was about to die. That's all."   
  
Eriol had actually laughed. "Well it's not like you predicted your own death, right? Besides, what's in the past is gone. I've learned from Clow's mistakes, and I'm looking forward to my own future. With you."   
  
It had taken her an unusually long time to respond, Eriol now realized, and when she finally did, her voice had been a few notches softer. "A vision of the future..."   
  
"A future with you," he had repeated, instinctively pulling her closer as if to reassure her and ask for her affirmation in return, but she had not said a word of agreement.   
  
He had believed she had fallen asleep.   
  
How oblivious.   
  
How pitifully naive.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  
Eriol stirred at the slightly muted sound of his name, then opened his eyes, only to find himself looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling, lying on an unfamiliar bed, in a room that felt distinctly familiar. It seemed that he was doomed to be perpetually disoriented. When he finally remembered where he was and what had happened, he closed his eyes a moment longer until he heard a soft knock on his door, and the gentle voice calling him again.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun? Are you all right?"   
  
Blinking the bleariness away, Eriol quickly got up and padded over to the door to open it. He found Tomoyo standing in the hallway, frowning, worriedly biting her bottom lip, her fist raised to shoulder height as if she were about to knock again.   
  
"Ohayou, Daidouji-san," he smiled cheerfully, and he noticed the startled relief crossing her features even as she lowered her hand to her side. "Is something the matter?"   
  
He could have sworn she was blushing, albeit faintly. Then again, maybe he just didn't know what Tomoyo looked like in the morning. She seemed uncharacteristically insecure when she spoke. "Iie. I just... I thought I heard you... talking. Sumimasen. I woke you up."   
  
Tomoyo bowed her head a little, and Eriol politely nodded back. "It's all right. You really didn't wake me."   
  
"So... would you like some breakfast?" she asked tentatively, still red-faced, and then Eriol noticed that she was still in her nightgown. He realized that she must have come running from her room when she thought she heard something, leaving him with an uncomfortably tight feeling in his chest. Tomoyo was doing so much for him already.   
  
Eriol smiled as a thought occurred to him. "In return for everything you've done for me, why don't *I* cook breakfast while you get changed?" his grin widened at her surprised expression, and then he proceeded to herd her towards her bedroom, his hands on her shoulders gently guiding her back.   
  
"But... you're a guest, and you're still injured, and I really shouldn't let..."   
  
"I'm fine, and it's nothing," he interjected smoothly, pushing Tomoyo further down the hallway. "Besides, you let Touya-san and Yukito-san cook yesterday, so why shouldn't I cook for you today? I get to show off my great culinary skills for you with a traditional English breakfast!"   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..."   
  
Finally managing to trap her back in her room, Eriol gave a cheerful wave of his hand just as she turned around to face him. "Thank you for letting me do this for you."   
  
And he shut the door.   
  
Tomoyo almost sweatdropped. "But... Hiiragizawa-kun... there's practically nothing in my fridge since Touya-san and Yukito-san raided it yesterday..."   
  
She blinked for a moment, then smiled when she heard Eriol's upbeat whistling as he walked towards the kitchen.   
  
At the very least... he wasn't outwardly grieving anymore.   
  


* * *

  
  
Yukito, who had fallen asleep outside on the couch late during his watch, hadn't been roused by Eriol's movements in the kitchen that morning, so Eriol managed to surprise everyone with the feast he made, resourcefully using what little food was left in Tomoyo's kitchen.   
  
In fact, breakfast was so good that even Touya, who had been taken aback at finding Eriol as the morning chef, had given Eriol a smile. No matter how much he didn't like the Englishman, or blamed him for hurting Tomoyo, Touya had to admit that Eriol was a damn good cook. Touya's father, after all, excelled at this kind of stuff, so naturally Eriol would be just as good. Yukito had only smiled happily before digging into his plate, while Tomoyo had politely thanked Eriol for the meal before eating. She had the sneaking suspicion that he had used magic to enhance the meal somehow, because she was quite sure there was nothing in her fridge to begin with, but she said nothing.   
  
Overall, Eriol thought it was a success and was glad to be repaying Tomoyo's kindness somehow, even if it was just through small gestures. He planned to do more for her in the future; after all, it wasn't every day that someone would save his life while shouldering the burden of his curse without having a nervous breakdown.   
  
Over breakfast, the four of them quickly decided that they would take Touya's and Tomoyo's cars to the airport to pick up Sakura and Syaoran, who were arriving just that morning. Touya and Yukito needed to go home afterwards to get changed since they weren't exactly prepared for a slumber party when they came over to Tomoyo's apartment. They figured Sakura and Syaoran would be good enough guardians until they could figure out their next move against Evil Eriol, as they had now dubbed the curse's manifestation.   
  
Eriol grinned happily at the thought of being in a car (Tomoyo owned a convertible Mercedes!) alone with Tomoyo (so he could reminisce with her, of course), until Touya announced that *he* would be riding with Tomoyo in her car, while Yue (*not* Yukito) would drive Eriol in the other car (Touya owned a Celica, which was okay...).   
  
After his declaration of seating arrangements, Touya shot Eriol a look that said, perfectly clearly, "There's not a chance in hell I'm leaving you alone with my other baby sister, you freaky, borderline-deranged, potentially homicidal, manipulative bastard," and Eriol had to grimace.   
  
It was partially the truth, after all.   
  
He conceded that Touya was being pragmatic, since the only one who would be capable of fending off Eriol, if Eriol were to snap and try to kill someone, was Yue. No matter how cautious Touya was, however, Eriol doubted Sakura's brother would be strong enough to protect Tomoyo should the curse attack.   
  
Then again, Eriol remembered the flash of energy that Touya had displayed only the day before. While Touya, being the son of Clow's reincarnation and the brother of the Card Mistress, was blessed with vast stores of latent power, that surge *had* been unexpected. There was something unusual, yet vaguely familiar about that powerful energy signature, and Eriol tried to think about where he'd felt it before. Unable to concentrate, especially since pieces of his memory were still missing, Eriol filed away the thought for further consideration later.   
  
With all things thus decided, the four set off for the airport. Eriol's mind wandered during the drive because Yue was not exactly the most talkative being, and though the guardian had practically worshipped Clow Read, he had been quiet about his devotion. He was no different now, and, surprisingly, he made no attempt to start a conversation with the reincarnation of his former master.   
  
Eriol guessed that Yue was simply giving him peace, and for that he was grateful. He needed to reflect on what the curse would do next and how it would try to destroy him. He was certain it would go after the people closest to him, so he wasn't sure if being near his friends was such a brilliant idea, but then he reasoned it would be easier to keep an eye on them this way.   
  
Of course, his mind scoffed. So you can watch them die one by one.   
  
Eriol hurriedly stifled the horrible notion and wondered how much more he could lose before he finally went off the deep end. He hated feeling so much guilt, so much uncertainty.   
  
When they were finally only minutes away from the airport, Yue's cool voice at last broke the stillness and startled Eriol back into reality. "Have you heard from Ruby Moon and Spinel Sun?"   
  
Eriol needed a moment to orient himself before responding. "Actually, no. I tried calling them before dawn and didn't get anything. I can't even sense them," Eriol confessed worriedly.   
  
"If Sakura-san says they're all right, then they must be."   
  
"I don't doubt what Sakura-san said. I just..." Eriol sighed, his voice growing quiet as he tiredly rubbed his eyes. "You remember how it was, don't you, Yue? Clow never once lost track of you."   
  
For a long time, Yue didn't say anything, and Eriol began to wonder if the guardian had even heard him. Just as Eriol resigned himself to staring out the window again, Yue spoke. "But you're not him, Eriol-san... Surely you..." the guardian hesitated, glancing sideways at his passenger, his tone softening. "Surely... you can forgive yourself for that."   
  
Eriol blinked at Yue, surprised and somewhat wistful. An ironic smile crept across Eriol's features, and, after a moment, the cursed young man turned away from Yue, his bitterness sharpening his tone. "How I wish that were true..."   
  
They drove the rest of the way in silence.   
  


* * *

  
  
The flight from Hong Kong arrived on time, and since Sakura and Syaoran were traveling first class, they were among the first to emerge from the baggage claim area. The reunion was just as explosive as Eriol had pictured it.   
  
"TOMOYO-CHAN!"   
  
"Ohayou, Sakura-ch--"   
  
The rest of Tomoyo's greeting was cut off as her petite, not-yet- visibly-pregnant, yet unbelievably powerful best friend almost toppled her with a running bear hug. Tomoyo staggered backwards in surprise, whilst everyone else looked on with amused expressions.   
  
Syaoran, sporting a sleek goatee well suited to his clan-leading persona, walked over to the group at a much slower pace than his wife did, partly because he was carrying two large, heavy suitcases. "Good morning," he greeted the welcoming committee casually, a smile on his face. By that time, Touya had already fixed his death glare on him, as was the older brother's custom.   
  
Greetings and handshakes were exchanged all around, and Eriol was surprised when Sakura gave him a hug almost as suffocatingly tight as the one she had bestowed upon Tomoyo. A meaningful silence passed until Sakura let him go, and then Eriol found himself in Syaoran's strong (yet pointedly brief) embrace.   
  
Eriol managed a smirk when Syaoran released him, but before he could spew out the obligatory teasing remark, Syaoran had already retorted, "Don't get any ideas, Hiiragizawa." Syaoran grinned at Eriol's surprised stare, and he added slyly, "After all, I'm a married man. You have to control yourself... 'til my wife's not looking."   
  
Syaoran emphasized his point with an overly dramatic wink and a conspicuous elbow nudge, earning him a burst of genuinely amused and impressed laughter from Eriol. Sakura, done giving her round of hugs, tried her best to suppress a fit of giggles, and Tomoyo hid her own smirk by demurely clearing her throat and nonchalantly looking up at the ceiling. While Yue raised an eyebrow, Touya simply rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, wordlessly grabbing one of the suitcases his still-snickering brother-in-law held before gesturing at everyone to start moving.   
  
"By the way, nice beard, gaki," Touya huffed, shooting Syaoran a sideways glare. "You look like a goat."   
  
Syaoran shrugged helplessly. The comment wasn't unexpected from his wife's older brother.   
  
"See? Even Onii-chan thinks it's awful," Sakura told Syaoran, before explaining to everyone else, "I've been trying to get him to shave it off but he won't do it. He says it makes him feel younger--whatever *that* means."   
  
"Just let me have my fun," Syaoran pleaded. "I'll shave it off when the baby's born."   
  
"If you need something to make up for your inadequacy as a man that badly, then by all means..." Eriol smirked, and Touya chuckled his approval.   
  
"I'll have you know I'm quite secure in my masculinity, thank you very much," Syaoran glared, recognizing that his friends were ganging up on him again, so he was relieved when Tomoyo came to his rescue.   
  
"I actually think it makes Li-kun look very sophisticated and artsy," she declared as the six of them started their trek back to the parking lot, and Syaoran gave her a very thankful grin. Over the years, Tomoyo had sided often with the Chinese youth because Sakura, Eriol, and Touya constantly picked on him. Her support had led to a very stable friendship based on deep, mutual respect--not to mention Tomoyo's mildly amused pity.   
  
Tomoyo smiled upon identifying Syaoran's half-exasperated Thank-You-Now-Please-Help-Me-Change-the-Subject look, and smoothly, Tomoyo asked, "So how was your flight?"   
  
No one noticed she had changed the subject.   
  
"It was... relatively quiet," Sakura shrugged, sending obvious warning glares at her husband. "The flight wasn't too long, so there wasn't much to do other than wait."   
  
Of course, given Sakura's warning looks, Syaoran saw his chance at payback. "What do you mean, quiet? You freaked out because your light didn't turn on when you pressed the button to recline your seat," Syaoran shrugged, and his wife promptly slapped his arm. He pouted, rubbing his mock-injured limb, before adding, "Well at least I didn't tell them you also screamed something about perverted announcements when the pilot said the connecting flight to Bangkok--"   
  
At this point, Eriol and Tomoyo started snickering.   
  
"--was going to be 'de-laid' and--"   
  
"I think you've done enough talking about that, ne, Syao-chan?" Sakura smiled, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness, her eyes glaring daggers. Syaoran didn't say anything more, but there was a satisfied twinkle in his eye and a slight smile on his face when he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.   
  
Eriol silently marveled at the changes one year of married life and a pregnant woman's supply of hormones had brought. Regardless of where they were or what was happening around them, Sakura and Syaoran were so obviously *happy* together. As far as Eriol could tell, Syaoran had mellowed out even more since the last time they had spoken to each other at Sakura and Syaoran's wedding reception.   
  
Then Eriol's thoughts took a sobering turn, and he couldn't help but wonder. If he'd had that same chance... what would life have been like for him and Kaho?   
  
His chest constricted painfully, and he looked away, his grin faltering. Although he was happy for and undeniably proud of Sakura and Syaoran, considering they *were* his daughter and his son of the next life, he hurt just by looking at them. He knew he shouldn't feel that way, and guilt tore at him even as he tried to ignore the jealousy welling in his chest. The part of him that retained Clow's paternal instincts was glad for them, of course, but the side of him that was just Eriol, the young man who had lost everything, raged against the injustice.   
  
"Forgive me for being so practical, but what exactly is the plan for today?" Yue seamlessly cut into the light conversations that had stirred naturally between Sakura and Tomoyo (about maternity fashions), and Syaoran and Touya (about the merits of facial hair).   
  
The question caught Eriol's attention, because then everyone turned to look at him.   
  
He smiled the best cheerfully fake smile he could possibly muster and asked, innocently, "What? Do I have something on my face?"   
  
"Well," Sakura began, "now that Syaoran and I are here, we were hoping you had a plan worked out, Eriol-kun."   
  
Unfortunately, he really had no idea what to do. He just wanted to know how to defeat the curse, too, and he had hoped that maybe Sakura and Syaoran might have an idea of how to do that.   
  
Beating it was his only real remaining reason to live, and he absently wondered if he could actually get on with his life without Kaho, once his remaining purpose was fulfilled. Would he just let himself die of starvation afterwards? He pushed aside the depressing thought for later.   
  
It occurred to him that Tomoyo would probably slap him again if she knew what he was thinking, and his mood lightened at the memory. No one had ever struck him before, and Tomoyo was the last person he would have expected to have the courage to do that. Needless to say, that particular experience had been a refreshing eye-opener.   
  
Realizing that everyone was still waiting for his response, Eriol tried to inject optimism into his smile, knowing that his words would not be so uplifting. "The problem with the curse is that... well, it's a *curse*, and a powerful one at that, so it's not designed to be easy to break," he explained, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. "I'm not entirely sure how to shake it off," he admitted at last.   
  
"But it *can* be broken, right?" Syaoran spoke, his earlier humor gone, his eyes narrowed and intense.   
  
Eriol shrugged. "Clow never freed himself from it. I don't see how I can, if *he* couldn't, being all-powerful and all."   
  
"But he didn't even realize it was there," Tomoyo pointed out gently. "Don't be so hard on yourself, Hiiragizawa-kun. Anyone else in your position would have crumbled by now. You're strong to be able to stand this far."   
  
Eriol gave her a small, but genuine, smile, hoping that she could sense the warmth he felt and wondering how she could always somehow make him feel... safe.   
  
Touya cleared his throat, not really comfortable intruding on the moment yet needing to, and said grimly, "But the question of how to get rid of the curse still stands."   
  
"It's not like any of us has experience dealing with a curse before," Sakura added, eyeing Eriol. She and Syaoran had assumed Eriol would know how to lift the curse because he had Clow Read's knowledge, but she could see that Eriol had already given up on himself.   
  
The six of them were still silently mulling over that problem when they finally reached the parking lot. Even after Syaoran and Touya put the luggage in the trunk of Tomoyo's car, no one made a move to get into the vehicles, still uncertain about what they were going to do.   
  
"Well..." Sakura began, looking at everyone.   
  
"Well..." Eriol echoed, at a loss.   
  
"Well..." Syaoran shrugged, indecisively.   
  
"Well what?" Touya snapped, and Yue snickered at Touya's impatience.   
  
It was Tomoyo, after finally losing some of her notorious patience, who ended up taking the role of the leader. She slipped quickly into the comforting familiarity of her CEO mood because she liked having things in firm control, after all, and when she was in that mood, she could be frighteningly efficient.   
  
"Other than standing around and staring at each other, does anyone have actual suggestions at all?" she asked, looking around at the uneasy and undecided expressions that her friends wore. Satisfied that no one, not even Eriol, had a real plan for the day, she briskly turned to the two newest arrivals. "Sakura-chan, Li-kun, you're not tired, are you?"   
  
Her best friends in question shook their heads, recognizing that they shouldn't dare to cross Tomoyo when Tomoyo Was In Full Command Mode.   
  
"Good," Tomoyo nodded, then turned to Eriol, who paled, recalling several instances in college when she had used that same tone of voice and wrought devastation upon unsuspecting subjects. "Hiiragizawa-kun, what are the chances that the curse will attack us today, given that you weakened it yesterday?"   
  
"Slim to none," Eriol replied, squelching the instinctive urge to salute and say 'Ma'am'. "Why?"   
  
Tomoyo didn't answer because she asked him another question. "How are your injuries?"   
  
"Almost completely healed," he answered, puzzled, "but I still don't see how..."   
  
She grinned at him, waving away his question, and turned to Touya and Yue. "Touya-san, Yue-san, you need to get back to work and organize classes so that you're available at a moment's notice. You don't have to do it, but it would be convenient for us in case the curse strikes again. Will you be all right and ready to go by this evening?"   
  
Touya and Yue's eyes widened at Tomoyo's bluntness, then both men nodded.   
  
"That's good," Tomoyo smiled disarmingly, and her commanding aura faded to be replaced by charmingly magnetic kindness. "Touya-san and Yue-san, please go back to your place and rest," she paused, her smile communicating so much gratitude and affection that Touya and Yue were almost overwhelmed. "And thank you for staying yesterday," she reached out to hug them, surprising everyone. "It means a lot to have two older brothers who care as much as you do."   
  
When she stepped back, Touya was positively glowing, while Yue appeared somewhat flustered, yet pleased. Tomoyo always had that effect on people--even those with the coldest of hearts.   
  
"It was nothing," Touya said modestly, and he smugly glanced sideways at Syaoran as if to say, "Look who has Tomoyo's approval now!" Syaoran only rolled his eyes, suspecting that it was partly Manipulative!Tomoyo at work but wisely not voicing his thoughts for fear of his life. Touya didn't see Syaoran's unimpressed glare because he turned back to Tomoyo worriedly. "So what are you four going to do? I don't think leaving you trouble magnets alone is such a great idea."   
  
"Well, we'll be fine. As a matter of fact, WE..." Tomoyo trailed off, inwardly chuckling as everyone unconsciously leaned closer towards her with bated breath.   
  
"We're what?" Sakura asked tensely.   
  
"...are going *shopping*."   
  
There was a pause.   
  
Then, a combined cry of stunned disbelief. "*SHOPPING*!?"   
  
"Yes, shopping," Tomoyo repeated calmly. "It's only logical."   
  
"Wait... shopping? At a time like this?" Eriol blinked at her incredulously. Maybe she *had* gone crazy. Maybe she had hit her head harder than she claimed she did.   
  
"You said so yourself, Hiiragizawa-kun. We're not likely to be attacked," Tomoyo reasoned. "Would you rather sit in my apartment watching soap operas while wallowing in misery all day, especially when you can physically do something more active and beneficial?" She accepted his bewildered look as his answer to her question and added, "Practically speaking, we also NEED to go shopping."   
  
"Huh?" eloquently stated an even more confused Eriol.   
  
"You can't live on my design prototypes forever, you know," Tomoyo said simply, as Eriol looked down at what he was wearing in realization. "You may look great in those clothes, but I don't have that many of them, and they're all expensive outfits..." Her eyes twinkled as he blushed at the unexpected compliment. "They're also not the kind of clothes I want to see ruined by miscellaneous accidents, including, but not limited to, oh... food fights, spaghetti sauce stains, coffee stains, tea stains, wasabi stains, soy sauce stains, tempura batter stains, teriyaki sauce--"   
  
"I'm feeling unusually hungry right now..." Yue remarked absently.   
  
"--grass stains, mud stains, dirt stains, snot stains--"   
  
"I would like to retract my previous statement," Yue said, suddenly looking slightly green.   
  
"--blood stains, soot marks, burn marks, tire marks, shoe prints, and the like," Tomoyo finished.   
  
Eriol blinked at her. "Wow. It's like you expect me to get all dirty while I'm here."   
  
Tomoyo smiled. Innocently. Then she shared an equally innocent glance with Touya, who grinned at her in understanding, which caused both Eriol's and Syaoran's faces to instantly turn white with fear.   
  
"Besides," Tomoyo said, as if she hadn't noticed the pallor of Eriol's face, "if you're going to be staying for a while, you need things of your own. Including new glasses."   
  
"But..." Eriol wracked his brain for a suitable excuse. Recalling how maniacal Tomoyo had been about dressing Sakura up during her card-capturing days, he had a bad feeling that shopping with Tomoyo would yield similarly painful results. "I... I need to contact Ruby Moon and Spinel."   
  
"It's night time in England," Tomoyo argued, unperturbed by his reluctance. She was used to bending people to her will, after all. "You already tried to call Akizuki-san and Spinel-san early this morning, and you can't sense them. You can afford to wait to call them again tonight, and hopefully you will get a response then. And hopefully, you'll be strong enough to be able to sense them again."   
  
Touya smiled wickedly. "Then it's decided! You can all go shopping," he asserted, happily shoving Eriol towards the front of Tomoyo's car. He was gleefully imagining the tortures that Eriol would be submitted to with Tomoyo playing Dress Up the Live Eriol-Doll. If all went according to Tomoyo's wishes, Eriol would eventually end up trying out maternity fashions with Sakura and Syaoran, and that mental image was just too sweet a motivation to resist.   
  
"I suppose it makes sense, in Tomoyo-chan's twisted way," Sakura said, doubtfully. By this time, Touya had pushed a weakly sputtering Eriol into the front passenger seat and shut the door.   
  
"Although I was hoping we'd get more done about the curse as soon as we got here," Syaoran admitted, yelping in surprise when Touya pushed him and Sakura until they were both tangled ungracefully in the backseat of Tomoyo's car. "Hey, what's the rush?"   
  
"Onii-chan!" Sakura cried, her voice muffled by Syaoran's arm somehow getting in her face in spite of the car's surprisingly spacious interior.   
  
"I hear there's city-wide autumn sale going on today," Touya grinned.   
  
Yue, with his arms folded across his chest, added as flatly as he possibly could, "Hurry. You might miss the low, low prices."   
  
A dumbfounded silence followed Yue's remark.   
  
Tomoyo only arched an eyebrow at her honorary older brothers before she slid into the driver's seat with a shake of her head, her shoulders quaking with silent laughter.   
  
"Call us if you need us," Touya ordered, one hand on the roof of Tomoyo's car as he leaned down next to Tomoyo's open window. "Drive carefully. We should meet for dinner later so we can discuss what we're going to do, don't you think, Tomoyo-san?"   
  
"Hai, that's a good idea," she agreed calmly. "Regroup at my place at seven thirty?"   
  
"We'll be there," Yue and Touya replied, stepping back and waving as Tomoyo pulled out of the parking space with her three passengers bewildered at Touya's obvious rush to get rid of them.   
  
"I expect to see pictures, Tomoyo-san! I know you still carry around that digital camera!" Touya called after them, and he was rewarded with her wave in acknowledgement even as she drove off. His smirk widened; that's what he loved about Tomoyo. When they were thinking along the same wavelengths, things could get downright wicked. Sakura was always too innocent and naive about pranks and practical jokes, but Tomoyo wore the mask of an angel and possessed the twisted cunning of a masterful manipulator. While Sakura was the younger sister he could tease, Tomoyo was the younger sister with whom he could plot the demise of several close, personal friends over a cup of tea.   
  
"You are *so* transparent, To-ya," a voice behind Touya called, and he turned, pleasantly surprised to see that Yue had reverted back to Yukito. "It's so obvious you want Eriol-san to be very badly humiliated."   
  
"Yeah, well, I have to have my revenge *somehow*. Thanks for supporting me back there anyway," Touya gave the shorter man a brief hug. "You could have told your other self to work on his delivery, though."   
  
Yukito shrugged as they both got into Touya's car. "Convincing him to actually say 'low, low prices' was hard enough, and Yue-san is not exactly the most flexible actor. I think I did a pretty decent job there."   
  
"Yes, you definitely did," Touya chuckled, glancing at Yukito affectionately. "Let's just hope Tomoyo comes through with those pictures."   
  
"So we'll have something fun to show off and look at while we're grading papers, ne?" Yukito smirked, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I can't wait!"   
  


* * *

  
  
After dropping off Sakura and Syaoran's belongings at Tomoyo's apartment, the reunited best friends had opted to go to the mall closest to Tomoyo's home, even though it was slightly more expensive than the standard shopping center, given the neighborhood in which it was located.   
  
The first thing the quartet accomplished was ordering Eriol new glasses. Eriol selected a pair of rectangular, wire-rimmed glasses, not needing to explain to his friends that he did not want to wear the circular ones that his evil counterpart wore. They had to wait an hour for the new prescription to be ready, so the four of them began their shopping spree by browsing a nearby department store.   
  
Within a half hour, Tomoyo and Sakura had made Eriol try on outfits ranging from the stylish ("Hoeeeeeee!!! You look like a supermodel, Eriol-kun!"), to the bizarre ("I don't think that pink fur boa is, in any way, reassuring to *your* masculinity, Hiiragizawa, but it sure as hell is doing wonders for mine."), to the simply ludicrous ("Well why *not* purple spandex, Hiiragizawa-kun? You might need it for certain extracurricular activities... Ohohohoho!").   
  
All in all, Eriol was overwhelmed, and he was starting to get really suspicious because Tomoyo, who had *conveniently* brought along a digital camera, thoughtfully took several pictures of him ("I'm building your portfolio, silly! You're fiiiiiine... You look faaaaaantastic.") in each outfit that he was forced to try out. Tomoyo even forced him to *pose* for each outfit, becoming incensed if he so much as flinched in protest. Syaoran was cackling with glee during every moment of Eriol's humiliation at the mercy of Tomoyo's madness, until they reached the forty-five minute shopping mark.   
  
When Tomoyo decided it was time to pull out the big guns.   
  
When Tomoyo decided to apply the saying, "Misery loves company."   
  
When Tomoyo decided that Eriol needed moral support from a fellow male who would be going through the same ordeal.   
  
THEN, Tomoyo's eyes gleamed wildly, and she said, very, very, very casually, "Ne, Sakura-chan, I bet Li-kun would look good in this. He and Hiiragizawa-kun would match..."   
  
At which point she held up two very skimpy-looking Speedos, one a blindingly hot pink and the other a blindingly neon green. The green, of course, was meant for Syaoran, who paled considerably when the almost non-existent piece of fabric was dangled nauseatingly in front of his face.   
  
"Why do we need bathing suits?" the Li Clan Leader squeaked in the most undignified manner possible, finding himself inching towards Eriol, who also looked about ready to flee for his life as well. The two men were apparently thinking the same thing: safetyinnumberssafetyinnumberssafetyinnumbers.   
  
Right.   
  
The two women advanced upon them with innocent-yet-so-obviously-evil grins. "Well, I just came up with a very good idea on how to help us get rid of the curse requiring bathing suits," Tomoyo explained, and suddenly everyone stopped moving, and her friends' eyes became riveted on her seriously.   
  
"What!?" the others asked in bewildered unison, even Sakura, who thought she had known what Tomoyo was thinking all along.   
  
"Well, the curse feeds on Hiiragizawa-kun's sadness, right?"   
  
Her three friends nodded cluelessly.   
  
"The simplest way to remove a curse is to starve it, right?"   
  
"Um... That could work..." Eriol said dubiously. "But soul curses like this have some kind of original condition that must be fulfilled in order for the curse to be broken. You can't break it by simply starving it..."   
  
"Hear me out, then," Tomoyo said, holding up a hand. "You don't know what condition must be fulfilled in order for this curse to be broken, right Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  
"I guess not..."   
  
"Well then," she smiled, "since the curse feeds on your misery, the easiest, most logical way to starve it is simple: you must be happy."   
  
There was a stunned silence.   
  
"I admit that sounds like valid reasoning..." Syaoran said thoughtfully.   
  
"Pretty smart, actually," Sakura agreed.   
  
Eriol took a deep breath. "Forgive me, but... what EXACTLY does that have to do with ME wearing a HOT PINK BATHING SUIT!?" he exploded, and suddenly Syaoran remembered why he was practically cowering behind his best guy friend.   
  
Tomoyo had the most self-satisfied smile on her face, and Sakura suddenly radiated wickedness as she *finally* understood her best girl friend's intentions.   
  
"We're going to have a beach party, of course!" Tomoyo exclaimed triumphantly. "We're going to Tomoeda and having a welcome-back-Sakura-chan-Li-kun-and-Hiiragizawa-kun reunion with our old friends at a barbecue by the beach!"   
  
While Eriol and Syaoran were too shocked for words at the moment and staring dumbfoundedly at each other, Sakura whispered worriedly to Tomoyo, "When did you plan this, Tomoyo-chan? Or was it just a spur-of-the-moment thing you thought of just to get the guys to wear the swimsuits?"   
  
"A little of both, actually," Tomoyo replied, blushing. "I was just thinking this morning of how Hiiragizawa-kun tried to be so cheerful in front of everyone, even though he was really miserable inside, and how much I wanted him to be genuinely happy. I got to thinking of how that might affect the curse, and, well... since no one had plans for anything, I figured we might as well enjoy our reunion and make the best out of a bad situation."   
  
"You really know Eriol-kun well," Sakura nodded sagely in approval, noticing Tomoyo flush at the compliment. "Good thinking. I'm sure Eriol-kun will be cheered up if he sees his old friends. Especially Yamazaki-kun."   
  
"I certainly hope so," Tomoyo said, then turned back to the guys, who, by now, had picked up their jaws off the floor. "Well?"   
  
"The reunion sounds like a good idea," Eriol began, "but don't you think it's a bit dangerous to involve the people I know? The curse might attack them..."   
  
"That's why we'll be there to destroy it if it does, indeed, attack," Sakura stated firmly. "It's the perfect setup. If we can lure it out in the open while you're feeling happy, then it must be feeling weak, so we can easily destroy it then."   
  
"What about the actual condition that Hiiragizawa-kun needs to fulfill in order to fully remove the curse?" Syaoran spoke up. "Don't you think we need to explore that, first? The curse will return in another form later on, even if we destroy this one, unless we satisfy that condition."   
  
"I think that's something I have to figure out on my own," Eriol muttered, looking serious for a moment.   
  
"Well then," Tomoyo said happily, "it's decided! We'll have everyone together on Monday afternoon."   
  
"Wait a minute... That's a work day, isn't it?" Eriol interjected reasonably.   
  
Tomoyo winked at him. "Never underestimate the power of a Daidouji, especially a Daidouji who wants to help her friends. It'll all work out."   
  
Eriol smiled at her, the happiness glowing in his eyes, and he took her hand gently in his. The light air of humor between them faded, only to be replaced with a tender, heavy seriousness beyond words. "Daidouji-san... I just... thank you for being such a wonderful friend."   
  
For a few instants, no one spoke.   
  
Sakura held her breath, awed by the beautiful moment transpiring between Eriol and Tomoyo, suddenly and clearly casting their relationship in a light so obviously beyond simple friendship. Syaoran only looked at Eriol and Tomoyo with newfound amazement and something akin to silent encouragement; those two certainly deserved each other, he realized, after all those years together.   
  
Time froze in that precious moment of connection between Tomoyo and Eriol.   
  
That is, until Tomoyo said, "Just don't think flattery will get you out of trying on your Speedos." She flashed Eriol and Syaoran her sweetest smile, reinforced by Sakura's equally potent persuasive grin.   
  
In despair, Eriol and Syaoran yowled.   
  


* * *

  
  
Putting up a small, inconspicuous magical barrier in a corner of the parking garage required little energy, and it effectively gave him the privacy he needed. Regular humans unaware of magic were always ridiculously easy to control, after all, and he didn't need outsiders prying into what he was about to do now. He had waited since yesterday to find the perfect opportunity to finally make his move, and he did not want to be disturbed when he finally had his prey cornered.   
  
"Onee-chan, something feels wrong," the little boy quietly said while getting out of the car, looking very ill at ease.   
  
The silent observer raised an eyebrow. So the little brat was a bit sensitive to magic after all? He might make a fine meal as well...   
  
"Is your stomach upset?" the older sister asked as she stepped out the driver's seat, shut the car door, and hurried over to her younger sibling's side. "Was it something you ate?"   
  
The boy shook his head numbly, scanning his surroundings. "Iie... It feels like something really bad is going to happen." He paused, clutching his sister's skirt tightly, and his voice shook as he spoke softly. "I'm scared, 'Nee-chan."   
  
The boy's eyes suddenly widened when they found and focused on the stranger's eyes glinting in the shadows.   
  
The dark figure smirked and stepped forward, purposefully removing his hood and prompting the boy to shrink away in fear and panic. Noting the direction of the boy's frightened gaze, the older sister whirled around in time to spot the threat emerging from the darkness. The figure approached slowly, trapping the siblings between their car, and the black Mercedes parked next to it.   
  
"Excuse us, sir. We'd like to get through," she said, nervously backing away, all the while keeping her little brother behind her. The stranger didn't stop coming forward and only smiled delightedly as his prey backed up against a wall. "Please... move away," she insisted, in a louder voice this time. "You're scaring my brother."   
  
"Really?" he said, perfect white teeth flashing predatorily. "Am I scaring you, too?"   
  
"Please... I'm... I'm warning you..." the young woman said bravely, reaching into her purse.   
  
Was it pepper spray? Mace? The hunter chuckled. Nothing so mundanely human could possibly affect him, and he continued forward until he was only a meter away from them.   
  
"RUN KENJI!!!" the young woman screamed.   
  
It happened in a flash.   
  
She pulled out a small can of pepper spray and used it against him, while shoving her little brother forward past him with her other arm. To her shock and dismay, the spray was deflected by an unseen shield around her attacker, who was momentarily distracted by the little boy who had managed to squeeze past him.   
  
Deciding that restraining the boy was a waste of effort, he returned his attention to his original target just in time to catch her arms as she tried to push past him. Brutally he slammed her against the cement wall, ignoring her cries for her little brother to run and get help. He silenced her with a deft elbow smashing the side of her face, and then he looked back to the little boy, who was frozen in his tracks and now staring at him with a horrified expression.   
  
The hunter smiled his most charming smile, for the first time glad that his Other Self appeared so harmless and so charismatic; his Other Self's innocent appearance intensified the shock and terror that his victims would feel. After all, who would suspect that such a handsome, cheerful-looking, bespectacled young man would be capable of so atrocious a crime?   
  
Feeding on their intense fear, he cheerily said to the boy, "You have a lovely sister, but she's mine now. Say goodbye, Kenji-kun!"   
  
Tears filled the boy's eyes. "ONEE-CHAN!!!"   
  
Ignoring the boy, and now glowing with dark energy, he plunged his fingers through the young woman's chest, in the space between her breasts, reveling in the feel of the blood suddenly trailing hotly down his arm. "So delicious..." he sighed as he gazed at her face, contorted in indescribable pain and terrified disbelief. Unable to resist a sudden, yet familiar urge, he bent down to kiss her, savagely crushing her against the wall with his body.   
  
His prey looked so much like Her... That was why he had chosen her, after all, but it was still a remarkable resemblance, really, and *far* too tempting...   
  
The dying young woman moaned as his hand viciously buried itself deeper into her flesh, finding her heart and systematically ripping her apart inside, and when he finally pulled his head away from hers, her blood stained his lips, trickling down his chin and dripping on to his cloak. Satisfied as he felt her energy merge into his, he looked back at the boy again, hungrily this time, and smiled again.   
  
Kenji ran.   
  
And in spite of his tears, or perhaps because of the emotional overflow, the boy unexpectedly broke through the magical barrier.   
  
The hunter's bloody smile wavered only slightly.   
  


* * *

  
  
The quartet spent the rest of the day in the mall, pausing in their shopping spree only to have a reasonably civilized lunch at the food court. It was reasonably civilized because only Syaoran's goatee, Eriol's new glasses, Tomoyo's purse, and part of Sakura's sleeve were the unfortunate casualties of the mini food fight that ensued amongst the four so-called adults. Those casualties were easily wiped clean, of course, and the four friends had happily resumed a five-hour marathon shopping frenzy that left the women giddy with happiness and the men staggering with weary embarrassment about the clothes they had been persuaded to model for the women.   
  
Thankfully, the men were not forced to buy the original Speedos that Tomoyo had them try on... though she discreetly took pictures of Eriol and Syaoran wearing them, in spite of their protests, and plotted to share the pictures with the old Tomoeda gang. The men had settled for traditional swimming shorts, a dark green pair for Syaoran and an elegant black for Eriol.   
  
Although they were supposed to be shopping for Eriol (who, against Tomoyo's insistence on paying for everything, paid for his purchases since he had his wallet with him), both women took the opportunity to make a few purchases of their own, including new, modest bathing suits.   
  
At least, the women's swimsuits were modest only when compared to the current trend of skimpy bikinis, because when Tomoyo and Sakura came out of the changing rooms wearing nothing but their bikinis, both Eriol and Syaoran blushed profusely and politely excused themselves. As soon as they were out of the women's line of vision and out of their earshot, both young men screamed and scrambled feverishly to the bathroom to stem the flow of their simultaneous, massive nosebleeds.   
  
For five minutes of mortified silence washing in the bathroom, Eriol had felt incredibly connected to Syaoran, because in those precious few minutes, they were simply two males reduced to puddles of hormonal goo by the sight of sexy females in swimsuits, both of whom were unaware that they were very sexy females in swimsuits, which made them all the more sexy in the eyes of the two young, drooling men. That was male bonding at its finest.   
  
Eriol became concerned that the image of Tomoyo and Sakura in bikinis might have been burned into his retinas, and he was glad to hear Syaoran voice those same concerns. The rest of their meaningful conversation in the bathroom went something like this:   
  
"Damn," Eriol had difficulty swallowing. His voice was a bit nasal-sounding since he was still trying to stop the blood flow. "Hot."   
  
"Yeah," Syaoran agreed dazedly, his voice also distorted by the tissue blocking his nose. "Damn hot."   
  
"..."  
  
"..."  
  
"By the way, Hiiragizawa, if I catch you looking at my wife like that again..."   
  
"But I *wasn't* looking at your wife!"   
  
At that point, Syaoran's eyes widened, and he grinned, suddenly very, very wickedly amused. Then Eriol paled, realizing what he had admitted in an obvious, yet roundabout way.   
  
Anyway, all things considered, it was a good, productive day, and Eriol had to admit that in spite of the slight humiliation, or maybe because of it, he had enjoyed himself. True, he was embarrassed to have to model so many outfits of varying flavors for Tomoyo, but he understood that it was all in good fun. She was trying to cheer him up, he realized, and she had succeeded beyond his expectations. Once he let go of his reservations about trying on the most outrageous clothes, they all had a good time generally complimenting and then making fun of each other. Even Sakura and Syaoran, who didn't really need to buy anything other than their swimming gear, had joined Eriol in trying new outfits, much to Tomoyo's satisfaction.   
  
Eriol decided Tomoyo really deserved to dress him up for all that he was putting her through, and he was glad she was enjoying it immensely. Her joy and laughter were contagious, and Eriol had found himself genuinely laughing throughout the day, almost forgetting why he was no longer in England in the first place--almost.   
  
But he honestly hadn't felt so relaxed since that fateful night.   
  
He guessed he had been feeling the weariness of Clow's age, and hanging out with his old friends simply made him feel like 23-year-old Hiiragizawa Eriol once more. He never knew how refreshing that could be, and he never knew how much he had missed being with his friends until now.   
  
And then... he had to admit there was nothing on Earth quite comparable to the beautifully warm glow of Tomoyo-san's smile, of her happiness. She was so beautiful, and she didn't even know how much of an effect she had on the people around her...   
  
Eriol reddened as the thought registered in his mind and looked away from Tomoyo's face, where, he belatedly realized, he'd been staring for the past five minutes while they were walking.   
  
What the hell was wrong with him!? Damn that stupid, revealing, form-fitting, strapless, ivory white bikini...   
  
Turning even redder, he shook his head, switching the bags he held from one hand to the other as an excuse to look away from his friends.   
  
When he tuned back into the conversation, Sakura was relating some embarrassing story about Syaoran's antics ("A BARNEY costume. Can you believe it? A *Barney* costume!") in front of other, older clan leaders in Hong Kong just as the four of them exited the mall and walked towards where Tomoyo's car was parked. Tomoyo, Sakura, and Syaoran were laughing about Syaoran's misfortunes until they actually made it into the parking lot.   
  
The joking mood ended there.   
  
That was when they noticed the sirens, the flashing lights, the plethora of uniformed officers trying to thin the somber crowd, and the throngs of onlookers milling about gravely in the parking garage.   
  
Abruptly the quartet's conversation ground to a halt.   
  
"What's going on?" Sakura mused out loud, worriedly standing on her tiptoes to try to see above the masses. Unfortunately, Sakura was still petite, so standing on her toes didn't do her much good.   
  
It was easy to figure out what had happened, however, because everyone else around them was talking about it.   
  
"A murder? In this neighborhood? How frightening..."   
  
"Did you hear? It happened a half-hour ago..."   
  
"...young woman..."   
  
"They say her little brother saw the whole thing..."   
  
"...poor kid..."   
  
"...traumatized for life, that one..."   
  
"No, no, just the older sister. Really bloody..."   
  
"With a knife?"   
  
"...no murder weapon found..."   
  
Eriol paled. There was something vaguely disturbing in the air. Something was wrong, and it was really grating on his nerves because the wrongness was too faint for him to be completely able to grasp what it was. He looked to Sakura and Syaoran, who gave him equally serious looks, and he knew that they could sense it too.   
  
That wrongness.   
  
The slightly tilted balance.   
  
That... evil.   
  
Evil.   
  
*SHIT*.   
  
"Oh no," he whispered under his breath, and he began to push his way through the crowd, followed closely by Tomoyo, who had quickly sensed the drastic change in his mood. Sakura and Syaoran trailed a few meters behind them, their eyes continuously scanning their surroundings for something that might be amiss.   
  
Because something was horribly, horribly wrong.   
  
Eriol was the first to reach the yellow tape preventing civilians from trampling the crime scene, and he nearly fell over at what he saw.   
  
A dead body, covered by a sheet now soaked in blood, lay on the ground a good distance away, but he could still see it. The horrible part was that it lay right next to Tomoyo's black Mercedes, now splattered with blood, as if confirming what he already knew; it was all HIS fault.   
  
It was HIS fault.   
  
He had killed someone again, however indirectly, but in the end, it was still all Eriol's fault.   
  
Suddenly he felt nauseated, and he tried to stop Tomoyo from coming any closer, but it was too late. She came to a halt at his side and gasped at the scene, yet instead of showing any sign of revulsion, which he had expected, she simply reacted by reaching for his hand and holding it tightly in hers, as if she understood the guilt and the pain he must be feeling at the moment.   
  
Her hand was his lifeline. In that instant, she became his anchor once more.   
  
"A vision of the future," she whispered.   
  
Eriol turned sharply to face Tomoyo. "What did you say?"   
  
She shook her head and pointed to the ceiling solemnly. "A vision of the future," she repeated.   
  
Sure enough, those words were written crudely in blood on the ceiling, and the warm liquid was still dripping to the ground, which was why the police had taped the crime scene off so widely. So that people wouldn't accidentally be tainted with blood.   
  
"No..." Eriol swallowed hard, his throat feeling parched. "I..."   
  
The low buzz of the people surrounding the crime scene and the tense murmurs of the police officers investigating the crime were suddenly silenced by a repetitive, piercing, bloodcurdling scream unlike any that Eriol had ever heard before. It sounded like a cross between a wolf howling and a young child screeching and a nail tearing across a chalkboard, and it chilled everyone's blood to the bone, stopping every activity cold.   
  
And suddenly everyone realized that it wasn't just random screaming either; there were actually words being shouted, and it took a few seconds for every syllable to make a twisted, terrifying kind of sense.   
  
"IT'SHIMIT'SHIMIT'SHIMIT'SHIMIT'SHIMHEKILLEDHERHEKILLEDHER HEKILLEDMY'NEE-SANSTOPHIMHEKILLEDMY'NEE-SAN!!!"   
  
And there, the source of this frantic wailing, was the seven-year-old, dark-haired boy, sitting just inside an ambulance, shivering intensely even with the blanket wrapped around his small shoulders, his face deathly white with fear and confusion and uncontrollable rage, shrieking with immeasurable panic that rose above the crowd.   
  
He was pointing directly at Eriol.   
  
Time seemed to slow down, and Eriol became acutely aware of every horrified, shocked face around him, the crowd backing away from him in a wave of steeply rising terror, Tomoyo-san's hand clutching his even more tightly, Tomoyo-san moving forward as if to shield him from the rest of the world, in spite of the army of furious-looking police officers lunging in his direction.   
  
The boy never stopped screaming, never stopped pointing.   
  
Eriol wasn't so sure what happened next, because he was hit on all sides by people, too many people, but one of them, he knew, was Tomoyo-san, who had tried to protect him with her own body, and she was crushed against his chest even as the other ten bodies tried to pin him down all at once.   
  
"Iie! He didn't do it! Please no! Don't! He's hurt! You're hurting him! Don't hurt him!" he heard Tomoyo-san shouting, to no avail, because that didn't stop the barrage of pain hitting him, suddenly tilting his world on its axis, restricting his movement so completely that he almost couldn't breathe as he lay on the pavement. He became vaguely aware of the sharp crack of his skull making contact with the ground, and the excruciating burst of pain that followed, before the police officers who had trapped him swiftly snapped the handcuffs on his wrists, pulling him and Tomoyo-san (no, they shouldn't arrest Tomoyo-san too because she was innocent and she tried to protect him) up to their feet and hauling them both towards the boy.   
  
But the boy shrank away in terror, frantically clawing his way into the back of the ambulance he was sitting in, screaming a new mantra. "KEEPHIMAWAYKEEPHIMAWAYKEEPHIMAWAYKEEPHIMAWAYHE'LLKILLMETOO   
HELOOKEDATMEHE'LLKILLMETOOHELOOKEDATMEHE'LLKILLMETOO!!!"   
  
There was a sudden flash of familiar dark energy coming from somewhere behind him, and Eriol swiftly turned back, in spite of the jarring pain the swift movement caused him, in spite of how badly blurred his vision became, and in spite of how much more viciously the police officers treated him. He turned just in time to spot the dark figure lurking beyond the distracted crowd, standing conspicuously atop a car a few aisles away from the crime scene.   
  
It was laughing.   
  
Before he was forced to turn away, Eriol was glad to catch a glimpse of the familiar forms of Sakura and Syaoran, in full battle mage mode, going after the fleeing curse, their magic unleashed at full strength since no one was paying attention to them anyway.   
  
Good.   
  
Maybe they would destroy the bastard. At this point, Eriol didn't care anymore if the curse would just keep coming back, as long as they managed to kill this one bastard for what it had done.   
  
As he was shoved roughly into the back of a police car, Eriol found himself unreasonably glad for only one other fact; Tomoyo-san was there with him. He was in a horrible place, a horrible situation, but he was glad that Tomoyo-san was there with him.   
  
She would save him. He knew she would save him again.   
  
Kaho wasn't there anymore, so Tomoyo would most definitely save him.   
  
  
  
-= End Part Five =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: March 25, 2003   
Chapter Finished: April 28, 2003   
Chapter Revised: August 15, 2003   
  
End Notes:   
Hmm... This chapter certainly surprised me while I was writing it. I found myself inserting some humor (hopefully not too cheesy) where I hadn't planned for humor, and so I wondered if that contrasted too much with the darker aspects of the storyline. Is it OOC for the foursome to be kidding around when there's someone dying because of Eriol (and, by extension, Tomoyo)?   
  
Then I realized that this is *exactly* how the characters are acting and interacting in my head, when placed in the situations I put them in. They can't be serious in serious situations all the time because then they'd go REALLY crazy...   
  
I just write the characters as I see them. ^_^ So... 'nuff said.   
  
I was also actually planning to write the scenes following the arrest in this chapter, but that last scene was screaming "MAKE ME A CLIFFHANGER DAGNAMMIT!" at me, so I left it the way it wanted to be. The author cowers before her work's wishes. -_-;;   
  
Besides, it's about time for me to post another chapter, isn't it? ^_^;; Heh.   
  
Thank you for your patience! (That is, if people are still out there reading this...)   
  
Please review and direct all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


	6. Deeper

Disclaimer, ratings, and other legal stuff can be found in Part One.   
  
Author's Notes:   
I apologize for the unforgivably long delay between posts. This chapter has been hovering near completion for months, but I never got around to finishing it. School and writer's block did most of the damage to my brain.   
  
To cure my lack of inspiration, I started another fic (a Prince of Tennis/Noir crossover), and thanks to that second story, as well as a much-needed break from CCS writing, I'm back in business! Mostly. ^_^;; I still can't update as often as I'd like, but I will try to keep the chapter-a-month schedule. Once again, I'm very sorry, and I humbly beg everyone's forgiveness.   
  
Reviewers: Thank you for being patient. I'm glad to hear your speculations about the plot, since a few of you are quite perceptive (almost prophetic) about key plot points... ^_^ Anyway, readers *please* either sign in to FF.net or leave your e-mail (that is, if you want me to contact you at some point in the future) if/when you review because I try to reply to all reviewers. Thanks!   
  
Chapter Warning:   
Kinda depressing. Rage-inducing. 'Nuff said.   
  
~ Dark Rune   
  
  
---------------------------------------------------   
"And I don't want the world to see me   
'Cause I don't think that they'd understand   
When everything's made to be broken   
I just want you to know who I am."   
- Goo Goo Dolls, "Iris"   
---------------------------------------------------   
  
  
-= Part Six: Deeper =-   
  
  
The physical manifestation of the curse, an unassuming, smiling portrait of Hiiragizawa Eriol, pointed a finger at the young man who had been pursuing him.   
  
"Die," said Evil Eriol, and his smile transformed into a chillingly insidious smirk. A burst of magic shot from his hands, straight at his pursuer, who could only hope that his protection spells would hold.   
  
They didn't.   
  
Seconds after Li Syaoran's shields crumbled, a bluish light blinded him, and he felt the sharp sting of magic surrounding him. Disoriented, the young man recoiled with the impact of the attack, pain shooting through his limbs and through his head, his equilibrium thrown--so it was unfortunate that he was standing on the edge of the building's roof.   
  
"OH SHIT!" Syaoran cried as his view of the world flipped over and he found himself hurtling backwards over the parking garage.   
  
"Iiieee!!!" Sakura screamed, instantly forming wings on her back as she dove after her husband. In a flurry of feathers and dust clouds, she caught him a perilously short distance above the ground, and even as she smiled at him with immense relief shining in her eyes, he could feel her trembling.   
  
Syaoran managed a feeble grin, still somewhat confounded by the attack, and said, "Gomen... I let my guard down..."   
  
"That's because you were shielding me when you *know* I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself," Sakura reprimanded as she set them both on the ground, trying not to show him how badly her legs were shaking.   
  
"I can't help it... I have two people to protect now," Syaoran replied, his amber gaze intense. "I wouldn't be alive if I lost you, Sakura... both of you."   
  
Her throat suddenly dry, she almost melted in his arms; after a year of marriage, he could still make her pathetically weak in the knees. Unfortunately, Syaoran had the strangest habit of showing his affection (already a rare occurrence) at the most inappropriate times.   
  
They were still in the middle of a battle.   
  
Sakura felt the dark energy streaking towards her from behind before Syaoran even had a chance to warn her. She reacted, and in the next instant, she had flown them both up out of harm's way. A split-second later, the ground beneath them exploded.   
  
"You know, now's a good time to call that stuffed animal out of that book he's been hiding in," Syaoran grumbled as he and Sakura landed a safe distance from the shrapnel.   
  
"There is no way I can support Kero-chan *and* keep up an illusion *and* a shield, *while* trying to dodge attacks from an opponent as good as Eriol-kun," Sakura retorted. "It's nice to know you have faith in me, but even I can't do that."   
  
Syaoran cursed under his breath. "Stupid stuffed animal proves useless once again."   
  
"Syaoran..." Sakura sighed, feeling a slight twitch in her side that indicated that Kero might have heard her husband's comment even in temporary slumber.   
  
"Is that all you've got?" their opponent taunted, fixing his scornful gaze on Sakura and Syaoran. At the sound of his condescending chuckle, the young couple turned to face Evil Eriol, who was floating merrily down towards them from the roof of the parking garage, unfazed.   
  
"He certainly has Hiiragizawa's arrogant charm," Syaoran remarked dryly, his sword now drawn alongside Sakura's, and Syaoran stepped forward, the urge to keep Sakura behind him too strong to resist.   
  
"I still don't get it," Sakura frowned, deep in thought and gnawing suspicion. "I thought Eriol-kun said the curse was only as strong as he was, and yet..."   
  
Evil Eriol's smile broadened. "It's a pity my Other Self doesn't understand me as much as I understand him. But I'll be a sport and give you pitiful mortals a hint."   
  
Sakura and Syaoran froze, tempted to destroy the curse while it was rambling, yet needing to hear what it had to say.   
  
"You see, as long as he doesn't understand why I'm here after what he did in England, I will only get stronger," Evil Eriol's grin widened. "He has no chance against me, especially when he's already hurting himself. He might as well give up now."   
  
"What makes you think he'd give up, you--"   
  
"Don't worry," the curse interjected affably. "I'll make him give up. I'm sending *you* back as an example, Card Mistress."   
  
"What the hell are you--" Syaoran began, but abruptly cut off in horror when Evil Eriol swept his arm in a brisk, broad arc directly towards Sakura, his power building in a sudden, towering wave. Syaoran's eyes widened in horror. "You BASTARD!"   
  
Both Lis were caught by surprise, and despite Syaoran's best efforts to shield her, Sakura's defenses shattered, and the young woman took the brunt of the attack. With a scream, she crumpled to the ground, her eyes shut tight but leaking tears, and she clutched her stomach in a way that made Syaoran's blood freeze.   
  
"SAKURA!!!" he yelled, immediately forgetting the rest of the world and dropping to his knees beside his wife, panic overloading his senses. Sakura was crying, shuddering, on the ground, her arms clenched around her abdomen, and Syaoran's heart bled with agony. She flinched when he tried to carry her, screamed bloody murder when he tried to comfort her, and he suddenly found tears forming in his eyes.   
  
"No, this can't be happening," he whispered hoarsely as he gathered up his sobbing, pain-wracked wife in his arms and tried to heal her magically, without success. He didn't even know where to start healing because he couldn't understand what was wrong with her in the first place. "No no no no... please no..."   
  
In the warm glow of the afternoon sun, on their first day back in Japan, Syaoran's most terrifying, most heart-wrenching nightmare was slowly coming true.   
  
Sakura and the baby were dying.   
  


* * *

  
  
It was delicious. The dying taste of their magic was exquisite, and it was especially nourishing because they happened to be the world's most powerful magicians. He was glad they never noticed how much energy he had spent protecting himself from them, hiding his weaknesses with false bravado. That bravado had given him the upper hand, because once the Card Mistress and the Li lost confidence in themselves, the fight was his. The Card Mistress's pregnancy had made an effective distraction and allowed him ample time for his escape.   
  
But he knew he had been lucky. The Li's were too careful. Through his Other Self's memories, he knew how the Li's normally fought, and he could see a marked difference in their abilities. They were weak now because the Card Mistress's pregnancy had made both future parents overly careful, and instead of attacking, they had spent their energy strengthening defenses that he already knew how to breach. His Other Self's knowledge had given him the advantage he needed to win.   
  
While he had emerged the victor, however, he resolved not to rely so much on luck ever again, especially against high-level magicians like the Card Mistress. He truly had to thank his Other Self for this victory, as his Other Self's guilt and pain had spiked so significantly that he had gotten an energy boost mid-battle.   
  
As he made his way through the streets, his thoughts wandered to who his next victim should be. He was sorely tempted to just get everything over with and go after Her. She was, after all, the ultimate prize, and if he could take Her, then his Other Self would have nothing. Yet it was still too early, and too dangerous. As much as he needed Her, She was protected, and he was not strong enough to defeat his Other Self as long as he had Her. Still, She was a double-edged sword; as long as his Other Self kept pushing Her away, never realizing Her significance...   
  
He smiled. This was a difficult situation, indeed, but he had an advantage over his Other Self. He just needed a different opening into Her mind, a back door left unguarded.   
  
He stopped walking and looked up at the sky. Closing his eyes, he imagined the kill again, and his hunger for blood was rekindled. He needed someone else to become even stronger.   
  
Ah, but tomorrow was another day, and with his Other Self conveniently taking all the blame while wallowing in glorious self-loathing...   
  
Eriol's mirror image laughed. The sky was his limit.   
  


* * *

  
  
In a small room containing only a table, two chairs, and a one-way mirror, a dark-haired young woman scowled. A young man in an officer's uniform trembled in front of her, and a middle-aged plainclothes detective leaned against the wall to her right.   
  
"D-Daidouji-san?" the meek-looking officer stuttered in embarrassment. He looked afraid to approach the young woman, who was notoriously rich and powerful. "We are extremely sorry to have involved you in this arrest. In all the confusion, we thought you were trying to help the suspect get away. Again, we apologize profusely, and we will return all your belongings when you leave the building."   
  
"Good," Tomoyo growled. The trembling officer uncuffed her wrists as if her stare might cause him to spontaneously combust at any moment. "Now, where is my friend? I demand that he be released as well."   
  
The detective, who was older, wiser, and, therefore, more collected than his younger colleague, stepped in to explain firmly, "I'm afraid he is being detained. Yoshizawa Kenji was a witness to his sister's murder, and he identified your friend clearly. We can't release him."   
  
Tomoyo smiled, baring her fangs. The younger officer shrank back in terror, while the older detective shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Tomoyo's body language clearly meant, "Mishandle my friend, and I will have your heads served on a platter for Sunday brunch."   
  
Tomoyo was practically dripping with edgy charm when she spoke. "He was shopping with me and two friends from Hong Kong when this murder took place," she declared. "As he is currently recovering from a recent illness, if you keep him even a second longer behind bars in his fragile state, I will make sure to acquaint you both with the terms 'no mercy' and 'abject humiliation.'"   
  
The younger man nearly whimpered, and the detective had to surreptitiously kick the boy in the shins to keep him from bolting for the door.   
  
"Daidouji-san, please understand that it's still pretty damning evidence to have Yoshizawa pick him out from a large crowd of people," the detective argued nervously, unable to look away from Tomoyo's gaze. "Besides, we have something that even you can't possibly deny, so I'm afraid you'll have to go without him."   
  
"And what's this so-called undeniable evidence?"   
  
Hearing the sharpness in her tone, the younger officer eagerly spoke up. "We have his confession!"   
  
Tomoyo blinked. "His what?"   
  
The detective sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "We have his confession. I'm sorry, Daidouji-san."   
  
His apology fell on deaf ears because Tomoyo had ceased to care; her mind was clouded with the sudden, burning desire to slap the hell out of Hiiragizawa Eriol.   
  


* * *

  
  
Leaning his head into his hands, Eriol slumped lower against the table. The police had left him alone for now, promising to come back with an attorney and a more thorough questioning. He had pretty much admitted his guilt. The murder was, after all, his fault, and now that he'd seen a picture of the victim before she'd been messed up beyond recognition, he felt even sicker.   
  
The curse had impeccable taste. Not only did she possess a decent amount of magic for it to absorb; she looked almost like an exact replica of Tomoyo. Perhaps her features hadn't been as fine, as elegant, but from a slight distance, it would have been difficult to tell the two apart. If that wasn't a damning message from his counterpart, he didn't know what was.   
  
Eriol was sure that the police had also noticed the strong resemblance between Tomoyo and the murdered victim, and it wasn't too surprising that they were detaining him. For all they knew, he was a homicidal lunatic bent on killing Tomoyo look-alikes. He certainly looked like he could be.   
  
When the door opened and closed again, Eriol didn't bother to look up, assuming it was another officer coming to beat more of a coherent confession out of him. As if his delirious mantra of "mea culpa" hadn't been enough.   
  
"Hiiragizawa?"   
  
The new voice startled him. His head snapped up in instant recognition, in the faint memories of good times long past.   
  
"Yamazaki?"   
  
Sure enough, there stood Yamazaki Takashi in a police officer's uniform, his chiseled face torn between joy at seeing his old friend, and sadness at the unfortunate circumstances of their reunion.   
  
"I can't believe it's really..." Yamazaki then started laughing. "Man, I don't know whether I should hug you or hit you over the head. This really beats out every prank we ever pulled when we were younger."   
  
The sight of his smiling co-conspirator instantaneously lifted Eriol's spirits. "That it does."   
  
Without another second of delay, Yamazaki strode towards him, keys dangling in his hands. As he uncuffed Eriol, he chattered, "You know, I couldn't believe that it was you when I saw your name on the first report. I figured there just might be someone else in Japan with the same name, you know? But then I saw Daidouji-san's name on the second report, and I knew it just *had* to be you two. You always were partners in crime, ne?"   
  
Yamazaki pulled Eriol to a standing position and regarded him with a smile. Eriol smiled back and said, "It's truly wonderful to see you again, although I'm sorry it had to be in such a horrible situation."   
  
"You do realize I don't believe you did it, right?" Yamazaki grinned, then pulled Eriol into a hug. "I know a lie when I see one, after all."   
  
"So are you busting me out of here illegally?" Eriol asked, an eyebrow raised as Yamazaki released him.   
  
"No way!" his old friend replied. "I'm just a lowly officer right now. I don't have the power to do that yet. Come back in ten years, though, and I might be able to spring you." He winked.   
  
Eriol hesitantly followed Yamazaki to the door. "So... what's going on?"   
  
"You're being released. Lord knows what strings Daidouji-san pulled to get you out so quickly without the paperwork hassle," Yamazaki explained, leading Eriol out of the room, "but she did it. It's really amazing, especially since the victim's family is outside shouting for your death, which is why you're going out through the back door..." his voice trailed off, and he eyed Eriol with concern. "By the way... did you *really* confess?"   
  
Eriol rubbed the back of his head. "I... I was delirious," he said, weakly. "The woman looked a lot like Tomoyo-san, and I thought... well... I thought it was all my fault. That I hadn't protected Tomoyo-san and that I'd failed her."   
  
Yamazaki chewed on his bottom lip for a few moments as the two young men walked down the hallway. Then, he shot his friend a knowing smirk. "So have you asked her yet?"   
  
Eriol blinked, honestly confused. "Asked who what yet?"   
  
The young officer abruptly stopped and eyed his friend with a curious sparkle in his eyes. "That's why you're here, isn't it? To finally pop the question?"   
  
Eriol's mood dimmed when he caught on to what Yamazaki was implying. "No... You've got it all wrong. Tomoyo-san is just a friend, and I..." he paused, wondering how he could possibly explain the past few years with Kaho and the past week without Kaho while not sounding like a lunatic. He shook his head, then resumed walking in silence. Yamazaki was probably starting to doubt his innocence by now.   
  
Of course, it might be easier if people thought of him as a lunatic because at least then they'd stay away. The more Eriol thought about it, the more he was convinced he should keep Yamazaki at arm's length. Sakura, Syaoran, and Tomoyo were already risking their lives for him, and he saw no reason to drag anyone else down, especially Yamazaki and his young family.   
  
"Hey, are you okay, man?" Yamazaki asked after a moment.   
  
"Not at all," Eriol replied.   
  
Yamazaki's eyebrows shot up briefly, but he only regarded his old friend for a moment before resuming the trek towards the precinct's back exit. "Ah well, this was a pretty rotten day, so I understand. Anyway... when did you get back in Tokyo?"   
  
Eriol flinched. "Thursday night."   
  
"I see... of course you're staying at Daidouji-san's apartment."   
  
Eriol gaped at Yamazaki, who was nodding matter-of-factly as he spoke. "Chiharu has Daidouji-san's number, so do you think we could set up a time to get together next week? You look like hell right now, and it'd be better to catch up somewhere nice. You haven't met my daughter yet, but I've already told Kaori-chan all sorts of stories about you, so you've got to meet her. She thinks you're a figment of my imagination."   
  
Eriol's lips twitched upwards. "With good reason, I think. I'd like very much to meet Kaori-chan," Eriol said, but his smile faded. He was still a bit perplexed by his friend's earlier comment. "Yamazaki, this might sound like a strange thing to ask, but how did you know I'm staying at Daidouji-san's apartment?"   
  
"It's all about logical deductions," the young police officer beamed, as if he had been expecting Eriol's question all along. "You got here two days ago, did you not?"   
  
Eriol nodded.   
  
"So you returned to Japan two days ago, and you DIDN'T call me!" Yamazaki's eyes gleamed. "Naturally, you would have called me as soon as you arrived, so *something* must have stopped you, something of UTMOST importance. What could you possibly be doing that demands both privacy and absolute secrecy? Where could you be staying?" Yamazaki waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Daidouji-san's, of course! Hiiragizawa, you sly dog..."   
  
Eriol's stoic expression was marred by the full blush now covering it. "Wait, it's not like that. She just..."   
  
"You can't lie to the Master of Deceit!" Yamazaki smirked. "As a professional liar, I can spot bad lies a kilometer away! Hiiragizawa, I'll figure out everything in the end because I am the best interrogator in Tokyo! The prodigy! There's no use lying to me!" There was a maniacal lilt in Yamazaki's laugh, and Eriol decided that Yamazaki had, indeed, chosen a very fitting profession.   
  
Eriol willed his blush to go away, muttering as indignantly as he dared, "Daidouji-san is a good friend, and she offered me a place to stay. That's all."   
  
Yamazaki shrugged. "Well it's obvious to me, and it's obvious to everyone else."   
  
"What is?"   
  
Yamazaki shook his head sadly. "Such is the fate of the male species. Always the last to know..."   
  
Eriol sighed. Why did it seem as if everyone was speaking in riddles around him lately?   
  
That was when they got to the end of the hallway, and Yamazaki opened the door to Eriol's freedom.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, glad you made it," a familiar voice said stiffly, and Eriol spotted its owner instantly. Her eyes blazed from where she stood in the shadows just outside the door, and Eriol paled. Freedom did not appear so forgiving in the form of a very angry-looking Daidouji Tomoyo.   
  
"Good evening, Yamazaki-kun," Tomoyo nodded towards the officer behind Eriol almost as an afterthought.   
  
Yamazaki nodded back with a polite grin. "Good to see you again, Daidouji-san. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to catch up on. We'll meet again later, all right? Chiharu and I will give you a call. Ja!"   
  
Tomoyo acknowledged Yamazaki's departure with a brief tilt of her head, then she grabbed Eriol's hand and pulled him down the steps of the police precinct. In the parking lot, a police car was waiting with an open door and a nervous-looking officer, who tipped his hat as soon as he spotted Tomoyo.   
  
"Where to, Daidouji-san?" the nervous officer asked.   
  
At this point, Eriol couldn't help but be impressed. In spite of the evidence stacked against him, Tomoyo had gotten him released, with free taxi service from a police vehicle to boot. Tomoyo must have used some serious connections and a lot of her manipulative powers.   
  
"The mall parking lot," she ordered, dragging Eriol into the backseat with her. "Please hurry."   
  
"Hai, Daidouji-san."   
  
The next fifteen minutes in the car were some of the longest minutes Eriol had known in his life. In spite of the sirens blaring and the police car barreling down the highway at 150 kilometers per hour, Eriol and Tomoyo maintained a strained silence in the backseat. She fidgeted as if she wanted to yell at him or cuddle him (or even do both), and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out what she would do once they were alone. Facing the wrath of a Daidouji didn't appeal to Eriol.   
  
His mood changed, however, when they arrived at their destination. Eriol had forgotten that Tomoyo's car was parked inside the crime scene, but the suffocatingly drab walls and the suffocatingly low ceiling reminded him of everything. They were witnesses to his sins. There was no way he could avoid what he had done, because even though the garage had been cleaned, the police tape and the blood stains remained.   
  
The whole place mocked him.   
  
The words on the ceiling grinned at him.   
  
Everything was there to remind him that it was his fault an innocent woman had died. It was his fault that an innocent child had seen a gruesome murder.   
  
It was his fault.   
  
Shutting his eyes tightly, Eriol turned away from his window, struggling to keep the bile from rising in his throat. It was getting cold. When the police car finally stopped, the officer got out while the engine was still running and hurried around the car to open Tomoyo's door, but Eriol didn't move. He couldn't.   
  
It was his fault.   
  
His heart was pounding heavily in his chest, and all he could do was focus on not passing out. It required a lot of concentration, and he was absurdly proud to be able to keep himself conscious, even if he *was* hunched over pitifully in a fetal position in the car, his arms covering his head trying to drown out the guilt. He was cold.   
  
It was his fault.   
  
He suddenly became aware of the loud ringing in his ears, and he bit his lip, drawing blood, willing the grating noise to stop. In the stinging darkness behind closed eyelids, he tried to focus on the pain of the cut, tried to see if that would shut out the loud ringing and the accusing voice in his head that relentlessly told him that he was guilty. But why would he need to shut it out unless he truly was guilty? The voice was rightfully accusing him.   
  
Why the hell was it so cold?   
  
It was his fault. He had ruined so many lives.   
  
Weak, unworthy, evil...   
  
Eriol heard Tomoyo get out of the car, and he truly would have opened his eyes to see where she was going if he wasn't so busy trying not to vomit and trying not to shiver in this arctic hell. He heard her door close, her voice, muffled by the incessant ringing in his ears, telling the officer something, and then Eriol heard footsteps going back to the driver's side. The car door opened then slammed shut.   
  
It was cold. He needed heat, and he would have asked the officer driving the car to turn up the heat but the car started moving again.   
  
He froze for a moment.   
  
Tomoyo abandoned me, he thought with an unexpected pang of disappointment, through the pain clouding his mind.   
  
Yet as the car moved, the ringing in his ears subsided, just a little, even though the pain in his chest and the accusing voice in his head and the sickening guilt in his body refused to let go.   
  
Something was really wrong with him. He was cold.   
  
Why did Tomoyo leave him?   
  
His head was hurting, but everything was his fault. He deserved it, didn't he?   
  
He supposed this must be his punishment. Tomoyo had looked really pissed off when she saw him, after all, and who could blame her? Even he was repulsed. Tomoyo had no reason to show him any compassion. He was a murderer. He had allowed a boy to witness something as traumatizing as his sister's murder. He had killed Kaho.   
  
The car stopped, surprising him again, and this time, the driver turned the engine off.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun..." Tomoyo's voice cut through the annoying ringing in his ears, banishing the noise and the pain in his head altogether. When he opened his eyes, the shivering Eriol blinked up to see Tomoyo leaning over him through the door, her concern obvious in her gaze. Looking around blearily, he finally realized that they were no longer in the parking garage but somewhere outside, next to one of the mall entrances far from the crime scene.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun, can you move now?" she asked gently.   
  
"What... happened?" Eriol managed to say, and only then did he realize that the driver's door was open, but the police officer who had driven them was nowhere in sight. Confused, he asked, "Where's the officer?"   
  
"I told him to bring my car out here," Tomoyo replied calmly, reaching out to touch the hand that Eriol had used to cover his face. "You looked sick, and I didn't want you walking around back there, so I drove you here. Are you all right?"   
  
Eriol stared at her as if he was seeing her through new eyes. "You... you didn't leave me?"   
  
For a moment, she appeared hurt. "No..." she murmured. "I couldn't possibly leave you."   
  
He smiled in immense relief.   
  


* * *

  
  
His question nearly broke her heart. Tomoyo sighed, wanting to give the badly shaken young man a hug but deciding that a hug would probably confuse him more. Instead, she extended her hand to him and said, "Come outside. You need fresh air."   
  
He accepted her offer. Trembling slightly, he got out of the car and stepped into the dying sunlight. She noticed the pallor of his face and was reminded of the hollowness she had seen in him on the night he first reappeared. His reaction to the crime scene had been frighteningly drastic, and instantaneous. Even the officer driving them had noticed the guilty change in Eriol's demeanor. Now she was worried about Eriol, but most of all, she was mad at herself for not thinking about how Eriol would react to being near the crime scene.   
  
Afraid that he might revert completely to his lifeless, amnesiac state, she silently grasped his hand, trying to anchor him in reality, and her action prompted him to look at her.   
  
"Daidouji-san?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them once more, she saw a clarity that had not been present just a second before. He smiled. "Thank you."   
  
She smiled back, relieved.   
  
A minute later, her black convertible pulled up next to the police car, and the nervous-looking officer stepped out. "Your belongings are in the trunk, Daidouji-san," the officer said, standing at attention in front of Tomoyo. "Please have a nice day."   
  
"Thank you for your help," Tomoyo said easily, slipping into the driver's seat. Eriol got in the other side and only nodded at the policeman as Tomoyo drove off. Once the police car was out of sight, Eriol slumped further down in his seat, looking more pitiful than ever. Then, realizing that he didn't know what Tomoyo's plans were, he asked quietly, "Where are we going?"   
  
"Back to my apartment," Tomoyo replied. "We're supposed to have dinner with everyone, remember? I'm assuming Sakura-chan and Li-kun will be there as well."   
  
Eriol straightened. "You haven't heard from them? How long were we at the police station?"   
  
"An hour and a half," she answered, betraying none of the discomfort she felt about her friends' whereabouts. "That's more than enough time for them to get back to my apartment."   
  
"More than enough time to call us," Eriol added thoughtfully. He couldn't help but be worried because he had seen Sakura and Syaoran going after the curse. If they had been successful in destroying it, they should have found Eriol and Tomoyo at the police station. That was when Eriol noticed how white Tomoyo's knuckles were as she gripped the steering wheel. He didn't say anything more, and she didn't comment. For a few minutes, they drove without saying a word, until Tomoyo's cell phone ringing interrupted the silence. Both Eriol and Tomoyo jumped in their seats.   
  
"Where's your phone?" Eriol asked, flushing when he realized how on edge he had been.   
  
"In my purse," Tomoyo tilted her head towards the bag on the car floor, from where the familiar notes of "Ode to Joy" were emanating.   
  
"Oh," he said sheepishly, picking up her purse and quickly pulling out the phone. He was surprised to see that it was Yukito calling instead of Sakura, whom he had been hoping for and expecting. "Moshi moshi. This is Eriol."   
  
Only seconds after Eriol hung up, Tomoyo was racing down the freeway towards the last place anyone ever wanted to be: Tokyo General Hospital.   
  


* * *

  
  
Yukito didn't say why Sakura was in the hospital, just that they needed to come right away, so the sight that greeted Eriol and Tomoyo when they arrived there shocked them.   
  
"Fucking bastard," Syaoran growled at Eriol. "Go to fucking HELL."   
  
Eriol didn't have time to dodge the lightning-fast punch, so he met Syaoran's fist fully in the face. New glasses flying off his nose, Eriol staggered backwards, and he would have fallen if Tomoyo hadn't steadied him.   
  
"Li-kun! Stop it!"   
  
Pure hatred raged in Li Syaoran's entire body. Ignoring Tomoyo's pleas, he strode towards Eriol with the obvious intent to kill. Much to Tomoyo's surprise, Touya burst out of the hospital ward and held the furious young man back.   
  
"Oi, hold it there, Gaki! That's enough!"   
  
Syaoran struggled against his captor only briefly before Touya had the sense to knock the younger man out with a sharp blow to the back of his head. Unconscious, Syaoran fell like a rag doll against Touya, who had to drag his brother-in-law on to one of the chairs lining the hallway. Half of Eriol wished that Touya had let Syaoran pound him to bits, while the other half urged him to get it over with and just throw himself off a cliff. Only the intense look on Tomoyo's face halted Eriol's thoughts in their tracks.   
  
She picked up his glasses and handed them to him, and before he could say a word of thanks, she turned back to Touya. Touya was slumped next to Syaoran, awkwardly shoving the younger man's lolling head off his shoulder whenever it fell against him.   
  
"How is she?" Tomoyo asked. "Can we see her?"   
  
Touya nodded. "Yuki's with her, so go ahead. She asked for you."   
  
As Eriol followed Tomoyo into the private hospital ward, he passed Touya and Syaoran, and only then did he notice the weariness in Touya's expression and the tear stains glistening on Syaoran's cheeks.   
  
Something was very wrong.   
  
Someone's energy signature was missing.   
  


* * *

  
  
The private hospital ward was well lit, but the air was heavy, weighed down by pain and sadness. In this brooding atmosphere, the flowery curtains surrounding Sakura's bed seemed tactlessly derisive, and the happy white bed sheets pooled around Sakura's waist were offensively bright. Even Yukito, seated in the chair next to Sakura, could not manage a smile.   
  
"Sakura-chan..." Tomoyo whispered, approaching her best friend slowly.   
  
Sakura looked up, then her gaze flitted somewhere behind Tomoyo, and she flinched, looking away. Tomoyo glanced back just in time to see Eriol's wounded expression before he covered it. For a while, Sakura didn't say anything, preferring to gaze at her hands mindlessly twisting the bright bed sheets into knots.   
  
"I guess Syaoran and I were a bit spoiled," Sakura said at last, and Tomoyo noticed Yukito's eyes widening, as if Sakura had not uttered a word before that moment.   
  
"Are you all right?" Tomoyo asked, reaching out to grasp one of Sakura's restless hands comfortingly.   
  
It was as if Sakura didn't hear or see her. She pulled her hand away and focused it on the task of attempting to rip the cloth into shreds. "We were so used to winning our battles without consequences, without casualties. We were spoiled. It's so stupid..."   
  
Tomoyo couldn't speak, dreading what Sakura's words meant.   
  
"But we knew what we were getting into," Sakura continued, a bitter smile on her face. "We knew the danger. We knew what could happen to us, but we just... *I* just... always assumed everything would be all right in the end. That my invincible spell would always save us. That's a bit naive, don't you think?"   
  
The question was directed over Tomoyo's shoulder, and Tomoyo didn't need to look at Eriol to know that his guilt and pain mirrored her own. "Just so you know," Sakura's intense stare was focused completely on Eriol now, "we don't blame you. At least... not entirely. This is the result of my irresponsibility, my carelessness. Please don't feel bad. I know Syaoran hit you, but deep in his heart, he knows it's not your fault, either. Please forgive him. He needs to find release somewhere."   
  
"Sakura-san," Eriol said, his voice anguished, "I'm so sorry. I really wish I could... I... I never... I never wanted anyone to be hurt. I'm sorry."   
  
As he bowed his head in shame, Sakura's bitter smile faded, and she turned her attention back to Tomoyo. "Tomoyo-chan, you can sense it, can't you?"   
  
Tears welled in Tomoyo's eyes. She didn't need magic to feel that something--someone--was missing.   
  
She didn't need magic to know that Sakura's baby was gone.   
  
"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan," Tomoyo tearfully echoed Eriol's apology as she reached out to hug her best friend. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."   
  
Exhausted, depressed, furious, and vulnerable, Sakura finally broke down and sobbed into Tomoyo's shoulder, returning her best friend's embrace with a fierceness fueled by profound loss. Tomoyo couldn't stop her own tears if she tried.   
  


* * *

  
  
As much as he wanted to seriously beat the shit out of that smiling English bastard, Touya couldn't. Something--a part of him that was surprisingly reluctant to hurt Hiiragizawa--held him back, regardless of everything that had happened. In his heart, Touya knew it was really that damned Clow Read's fault, so he couldn't blame anyone in the present, no matter how convenient it was to accuse Clow's reincarnation. Besides, beating up Hiiragizawa would probably be like beating up his own father; Touya couldn't do it without a guilty conscience.   
  
Dinner was a gloomy, painfully silent affair outside of Sakura's ward. Tomoyo stayed by her best friend's side throughout the evening, ignoring pleas to eat, so the men sat in their chairs outside, not saying a word to each other as they picked listlessly at their microwaved cafeteria food. Touya noted that Eriol couldn't face Syaoran, his entire posture hunched away from the Li clan leader, while Syaoran, who wasn't fully conscious anyway, avoided looking up altogether. With Touya's encouragement, Syaoran mustered the strength to eat a spoonful of food, then threw the rest of his dinner away. He didn't say anything when he went back inside Sakura's room, and Touya didn't blame him.   
  
Touya didn't have the heart to blame anyone anymore. When he'd heard what happened that afternoon, he'd raved like a lunatic, searching for someone to blame, and he had even punched Syaoran in the stomach when he first spotted his brother-in-law at the hospital. Touya regretted it when he at last calmed down and realized that Syaoran was hurting probably just as much as Sakura. Yue's reprimanding glare had only reinforced Touya's guilt.   
  
He had no right make Syaoran feel bad, especially since out of all of the men, Syaoran was the one who rightfully deserved to vent.   
  
So the hours passed miserably, slowly.   
  
Tomoyo emerged from the hospital ward at around eleven that night. Catching a glimpse inside as she walked through the door, Touya saw that Syaoran had fallen asleep in the chair next to Sakura, holding her hand tightly as if he was afraid she might disappear. Touya, softie that he was, almost forgave Syaoran for marrying his sister.   
  
Eriol remained seated outside like a statue, next to an equally still Yue, and Eriol only flinched when Tomoyo reached for him.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun," she whispered, nudging him gently with her hand. "We should go."   
  
"Where?" Touya frowned. "It's dangerous out there."   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun and I have to go," Tomoyo said quietly, and Eriol looked startled when she grasped his arm and pulled him to a standing position.   
  
"What? After what happened to Sakura?" Touya rose to his feet, alarmed. "Are you insane? I won't let you go!"   
  
For a moment, Tomoyo's face seemed to change--almost as if she had turned into an entirely different person for a second. Touya dismissed it as a trick of the light. "Meet us at my old house in Tomoeda," she directed calmly. "Sakura-chan will be discharged tomorrow night, so take her and Li-kun to my old house. Don't go to my apartment."   
  
"Why? What are you doing?" Confused, Touya followed Tomoyo as she dragged an unresisting Eriol down the hallway. "Tomoyo-san, stop!"   
  
Touya grabbed her arm, and they stopped in the hall just in front of the elevator. She gently pulled herself away from him, looking apologetic. "I have a really bad feeling about my apartment, Touya-nii. We can't stay there any longer."   
  
"Because of a feeling?"   
  
She met his gaze with determination. "You've felt the same thing before, haven't you?"   
  
"Tomoyo," he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, "I feel these things because I have magic. You, on the other hand, do NOT possess any magical ability whatsoever."   
  
"That doesn't matter," Tomoyo said. "I'm as sure of this as you are about spirits. My apartment is dangerous, and we need to move out of there now."   
  
"So who's going to defend you if the curse attacks?" Touya argued, irritated that his honorary younger sister was bent on a suicidal trip with the English bastard, no less.   
  
"We won't be attacked," she assured, and Touya blinked, unable to decide if that strange light in her eyes was just a figment of his imagination. "It's useless to bring Yue-san with us," Tomoyo added, "now that Sakura-chan's power level is so low. You know he'll fade away if he goes too far from her."   
  
"That doesn't mean you can go alone," Touya countered. "I'll go with you."   
  
"But you can't protect us either," Tomoyo pointed out reasonably. "You may have magic, but you can't use it. You'll be dead weight before you know it. Besides, I think the best defense is already with me."   
  
Touya hesitated, staring at Tomoyo, then at Eriol. "You're kidding... Him?"   
  
Tomoyo glanced at the unresponsive Eriol for a second. "If there's anything I can count on, it's Hiiragizawa-kun's guilt, Touya-nii."   
  
He fell silent, wanting desperately to say something that would persuade her to stay but unable to think of anything. Once Tomoyo set her mind on something, there was usually no stopping her. Once Tomoyo started calling him "Touya-nii", he was lost.   
  
"Besides," she smiled wryly, "at least this way, everyone here will be safe. If the curse attacks, there'll only be two more casualties, ne?"   
  
Before Touya could argue any more, the elevator doors opened--when did Tomoyo have time to press the button?--and she stepped inside with Eriol. "Stay with Sakura-chan," she pleaded, as the doors shut. "She needs your strength and your magic to keep Yukito-san alive."   
  
She waved apologetically at him, her smile vanishing behind the closed elevator doors. With a frustrated yell, Touya slammed his fists against the nearest wall.   
  
Damn Tomoyo.   
  
Closing his eyes, he slumped against the wall, running his hands through his hair as he slid down to a sitting position. Sometimes, Touya really hated that Tomoyo was so good at reading people and making them bend to her will. When Tomoyo turned against someone, that someone was officially screwed, and in this case, the unlucky victim happened to be him.   
  
Tomoyo had observed everyone so quietly in the sidelines for so long that it was easy to forget how incredibly perceptive she was. While she had remained an enigma to everyone, she had been analyzing people's personalities, figuring out what made each person tick while sharpening her manipulation skills.   
  
She had figured Touya out.   
  
Tomoyo knew that, as much as Touya loved her and Sakura, when push came to shove, he would choose one sister over the other--the real sister over his honorary one.   
  
And Tomoyo knew that, as much as Touya loved his family, when his back was against a wall...   
  
Touya sighed.   
  
He wouldn't choose *anyone* over Yukito.   
  


* * *

  
  
You must leave him. He is blind. He cares nothing for you. He sees no one but her memory.   
  
But I need you. I *know* I need you.   
  
And unlike him, I will treat you like a queen. I will give you a funeral worthy of a queen.   
  
Don't worry.   
  
You have nothing to fear.   
  
Your death will be painless.   
  


* * *

  
  
Eriol couldn't remember much of what happened at the hospital. It was a sterile blur after Syaoran punched him, after Sakura looked at him with such deep melancholy in her eyes. Eriol only realized then how much he had hurt his daughter, because the pain in her lifeless emerald gaze mirrored the hollowness that Clow Read had seen in his own reflection.   
  
But unlike Clow, Sakura was innocent, undeserving of her pain. She was saving the world from something Clow had created. Life wasn't supposed to be this way. Good people weren't supposed to hurt this much.   
  
No one outwardly blamed him, of course, but Eriol saw the way his friends had flinched when they saw him. Even Tomoyo, as she led him to the parking lot and pushed him into her car and started driving away from the hospital, kept giving him strange, piercing looks.   
  
Not that he cared much, at this point.   
  
He didn't really feel like hearing their stinging accusations when he wasn't done delivering his own, yet.   
  
Before he knew it, they were in Tomoyo's apartment again, a sullied sanctuary very different from the day before. Now it was even more tainted.   
  
"We're leaving," Tomoyo announced as she led Eriol by the hand, towards her bedroom, and left him standing in the doorway.   
  
"What?" Eriol blinked, watching as she hurriedly pulled out clothes from her closet and random drawers and tossed all the garments on the bed. She had always been systematic about everything she did, so her randomness disturbed Eriol.   
  
"We're going to my old house, in Tomoeda," Tomoyo declared. She pulled out a suitcase from her closet, threw it on the bed, opened it, and proceeded to stuff the jumble of clothes inside it like a whirlwind. "We can't stay here anymore."   
  
"Why not?" he asked, frustrated. How could she care about such trivial details when there were more important matters to discuss? Her unexpected desire to go back to her old home was demeaning the loss Sakura and Syaoran had suffered, and it cheapened Eriol's guilt. "What's the point? No matter where I go, people will die anyway."   
  
Tomoyo abruptly stopped, and Eriol felt a chill run down his spine. She didn't respond at once, tilting her head slowly up until she could look into his eyes. For a moment, Eriol glimpsed a flicker of--anger? disgust?--something dangerous in her eyes, but it vanished.   
  
"I'll just endanger more people over there," Eriol concluded.   
  
"I was wrong," Tomoyo said, confusing Eriol again.   
  
"About what?"   
  
"I thought if you were happy, the curse would be affected negatively... but it wasn't."   
  
Eriol's shoulders drooped lower. "No... it's a good theory... It may have some truth in it."   
  
"So I was wrong about something else, wasn't I?" she persisted, prompting Eriol to look at her. "You're not happy. Even if it was just temporary... I thought... I thought I could make you happy just for a day. You were even laughing, Hiiragizawa-kun. You had everyone fooled."   
  
"I..."   
  
She shook her head, bitterness infused in her voice. "But I forgot. It's different with us, isn't it? We smile when we're sad, and we cry when we're happy."   
  
"No, it's not that... I... I was happy, for a while, pretending," he sighed and leaned against the wall, raking a hand through his hair. "But pretending isn't enough anymore. It's not your fault I'm sad because it's not your job to make me happy. I didn't ask you--"   
  
"But what if I want to?" she interrupted, and her annoyed tone set off warning signals in his mind.   
  
"You... what?"   
  
"What if I want to make you happy?" she straightened, slamming the suitcase shut. He flinched. "Did it ever occur to you that that's what friends do? That people don't need to have a life debt to you in order for them to care about your well-being? Do you honestly think Sakura-chan and Li-kun came to Japan and agreed to fight your curse because you helped them out a few years ago?"   
  
Eriol was at a loss. "But... I didn't ask..."   
  
"For someone who knows so much about the universe, you know very little about how families work, Hiiragizawa-kun," Tomoyo said calmly. "Perhaps you've forgotten the fact that families consist of more than one person."   
  
He frowned, but said nothing when she walked out of her room, holding her suitcase in one hand and motioning for him to follow with the other.   
  
"Please take Sakura-chan and Li-kun's luggage," she ordered as she went out the front door. Though he was still confused, Eriol complied and followed her, watching as she locked her apartment and started walking down the hallway.   
  
"Why are we going back to your old house?" he asked, when the two of them were inside the elevator.   
  
"Because my apartment isn't safe," Tomoyo answered. "I know it sounds crazy, but I have a really bad feeling about this place. Besides, Mother is on a business trip, so she'll be safe and the house will have room for everyone. My bodyguards may even be able to catch your curse before it reaches us."   
  
"They can't protect you from magic, Daidouji-san," he pointed out. "Your bodyguards will be in as much danger."   
  
She didn't respond.   
  
The elevator doors opened again, and Tomoyo took the lead, walking briskly out the lobby and into the parking lot. She didn't utter a word as she opened the trunk of her car and Eriol placed the suitcases next to all of the day's purchases, and she was silent as she got in and started the engine.   
  
Once she was driving, she spared Eriol a glance and addressed his concerns grimly. "My apartment holds no good memories for you, Hiiragizawa-kun. I may not be able to sense magic, but I know that my apartment reeks of death and evil," she explained. "I think... I think you'll be happier where you first ceased to be Clow Read... where you began your existence as Hiiragizawa Eriol."   
  
He blinked at her, suddenly, indescribably glad that she could understand him better than he could understand himself sometimes. "Daidouji-san..."   
  
"I also want you to put an end to this curse there," Tomoyo added, startling him.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
Tomoyo's eyes never left the road. "No one else must die. You will issue a challenge to him, and you will defeat him."   
  
"But that's just the point," Eriol sighed. "I don't know how to beat it. I don't even know how to call it."   
  
"Tomorrow is Sunday, our day to recuperate," Tomoyo continued calmly, as if she hadn't heard Eriol's protest. "Tomorrow night, Sakura-chan will come back from the hospital, and we will have that barbecue at the beach on Monday, as planned."   
  
Eriol gaped. "Are you insane?"   
  
"It will be a private party with just the people who know about the curse, so no one else will be in danger," Tomoyo clarified. "We will use me as bait to lure it out, and you, with help from Sakura-chan and Li-kun and Touya-nii and Yukito-nii, will defeat it. Understood?"   
  
He shook his head disbelievingly. "Look, Daidouji-san, as fun as it is for you to plan all this stuff out, life just doesn't work that way," Eriol shot back. "It's not that easy. You can't manipulate death. You can't make appointments with death and expect to live. You can't assume people will show up where they're supposed to, when they're supposed to. Did you even think about Sakura-san's feelings?"   
  
"Yes, I did, actually," she gave him a look that dared him to contradict her. "And I know Sakura-chan is wise enough, professional enough, and optimistic enough to move on beyond her grief," Tomoyo paused. "So what about you?"   
  
Eriol turned away, his emotions churning. What about him? What the hell did Tomoyo expect from him, anyway? "What about me?"   
  
"You're still grieving, even though you know your actions have serious consequences," she said. "The Hiiragizawa-kun I once knew would not have allowed his own feelings to endanger anyone else. He would have taken care of any threat to his family before he allowed himself to give in to his emotions."   
  
Leaning his head into his hands, Eriol sighed. For once, Tomoyo had interpreted it wrongly.   
  
Kaho...   
  
She didn't know Kaho.   
  
Kaho was different. Kaho had meant everything to him. He wouldn't let Kaho go because he couldn't, because he was bound to her. Why couldn't Tomoyo see that?   
  
"You don't understand," Eriol whispered angrily. "You don't understand anything at all."   
  
"I think I *do* understand," Tomoyo responded in a cool tone. "You're angry, guilty, ashamed. You pity yourself yet you hate yourself at the same time. You want to die, but you feel it's your duty to destroy this curse before it hurts anyone else. And because you blame yourself so much, you're trying your level best to make yourself miserable because you don't think you deserve to be happy. Am I close?"   
  
He glanced up at Tomoyo, startled by her insightful assessment. He struggled to maintain his composure. "So... am I not allowed to be human now?"   
  
"That's not what I said."   
  
"Am I not supposed to blame myself for Kaho's death? Am I supposed to be okay with you being targeted for no good reason? Am I supposed to just accept that a woman was murdered in front of her little brother for MY sake? What about Sakura and Syaoran? What about their child?"   
  
"No..." she groaned, frustration creeping into her voice. "It's natural to feel guilty. You wouldn't be human otherwise. I just want you to stop beating yourself up long enough to remember."   
  
He frowned, slouching in his seat. "Remember what?"   
  
"That the world doesn't revolve around you. Everyone else is human, too, Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
Eriol clenched his fists as he looked out the window. How could Tomoyo even say that? This was his stupid curse, his stupid fault. Of course the world didn't revolve around him, but this curse did. He damn well had a right to be furious and guilty and ashamed about it.   
  
"I *know* that," he said at last.   
  
"Then why don't you act like it?"   
  
He blinked at her, confused. "What? How?"   
  
She glared at him. "Just... forget it. If you still can't see anything beyond your own reflection, forget it," she said, shaking her head.   
  
"But..."   
  
"Just leave it, all right?"   
  
They spent the rest of the trip in uncomfortable silence.   
  


* * *

  
  
Love me because I need you.   
  
Loathe me for the lesson I had to teach.   
  
Come to me.   
  
Die for me.   
  
And make my existence complete.   
  


* * *

  
  
Eriol had quite a few memories of the Daidouji mansion. It had served as the primary headquarters of the Sakura-Syaoran-Tomoyo-Eriol quartet mainly because the big, usually empty house contained lots of gadgets, a wicked home theater system, plenty of hiding spaces, a music room, a game room, a spa, and, according to Syaoran, the best hot cocoa this side of Asia. Tomoyo had always joked that the only things her house lacked were people, and although she had said the words light-heartedly back then, Eriol knew she had meant every syllable.   
  
Now, as they approached it in the darkness of midnight, the house seemed lonely and foreboding. Since all the servants had gone home and Daidouji Sonomi had dismissed many of her bodyguards after Tomoyo moved for college, the house was empty. The bodyguards still employed by the Daidouji family were off duty because their employer was currently in Germany.   
  
After Eriol and Tomoyo entered the mansion and deposited their belongings in the bedrooms, Tomoyo took out her cell phone and began to dial. Realizing who she was calling, Eriol held her back. "Don't summon your bodyguards, Daidouji-san," he said gently. "They'll only be cannon fodder if they come here."   
  
Tomoyo froze, unwilling to sacrifice the women who had protected her all her life. For a moment, as she put her phone back into her purse, she seemed lost in thought, but then she sat in the living room couch and turned to Eriol, in the seat opposite hers, with an expression that would not accept anything less than agreement. "All right, I won't call my bodyguards," she conceded, "but we still need something to keep unwanted guests out. Therefore, you will cast a spell around this house, Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
"A defensive shield?" Eriol frowned.   
  
"You've cast similar spells in the past," she pointed out. "You said it doesn't take much effort to block out an enemy once you know his energy signature. You know the curse, don't you?"   
  
For a few seconds, he stared at her, awed once again by how easily she seemed to work her way out of difficult situations. "You're right," he agreed slowly. "But after all that's happened, I... I don't think I can--"   
  
"Yes, you can," she interjected. "Hiiragizawa-kun, please... I have faith in you."   
  
"You're probably the only one..."   
  
"Then try for me."   
  
He would have protested if she hadn't clasped his hands gently, kindly, in a comforting way that reminded Eriol very much of Kaho.   
  
Warm, elegant fingers, the soothing, feather-light brush of skin against skin...   
  
Eriol crumbled.   
  
"All right."   
  
His aura flared.   
  


* * *

  
  
Eriol's shield, however flimsy, brought Eriol and Tomoyo a small, much-needed measure of peace, if only for a few hours. For both of them, the night was still restless, and Sunday dawned with a grim canopy of clouds promising only a darker day ahead. Eriol didn't mind the weather because it matched his mood, but he grew worried; the clouds seemed to be concentrated in the vicinity of Tomoyo's apartment. His uneasiness only grew stronger as the hours passed, yet he couldn't bring himself to tell Tomoyo about his fears. She had insisted that Sunday was their day to rest, and she made it clear that he should be in top form by tomorrow. Now was definitely not the time to be a coward.   
  
As reluctant as he was about facing his evil twin, Eriol knew Tomoyo was right. He needed to be strong enough to defend her. Maybe he wouldn't defeat Evil Eriol, but he needed to make sure that at least Tomoyo would not be harmed.   
  
He couldn't afford to see Tomoyo hurt after what he had allowed to happen to Sakura.   
  
After Kaho.   
  
Eriol tried to fight off his guilt when he and Tomoyo went back to the hospital to visit Sakura that afternoon, but seeing Sakura's tired smile and Syaoran's forced apology for his act of violence yesterday instantly resurrected Eriol's guilt. Eriol couldn't face Touya and Yukito's distant stares either, so he left the building as soon as he could find an excuse, too ashamed to even be on the same floor as the people he had wronged. Tomoyo emerged from the hospital only a few minutes later, distress reflected in her eyes.   
  
Whether her concern was for him or for Sakura, Eriol didn't know. He just knew he didn't deserve it.   
  
"Let's go home," Tomoyo said, placing a hand on his shoulder.   
  
"Sure," Eriol turned away, heading quickly for her car.   
  
"Hiiragizawa-kun," she sighed, running to catch up to him, "everyone agreed that we should try challenging the curse tomorrow. We may not know the conditions to break the curse, but it's enough to stop it from killing more people for now."   
  
"Sakura-san is all right with it?" he asked tentatively.   
  
"Sakura-chan wasn't badly injured... at least not..."   
  
"Not physically," Eriol finished, turning away.   
  
"Look, I know you think they blame you and they hate you for unleashing this curse, but they don't," Tomoyo said firmly. "Please understand their feelings."   
  
"That's easy for *you* to say," Eriol responded as she unlocked the car doors, and he got in the car just as she did. "You're not the one who started this."   
  
Tomoyo jammed her keys into the ignition with so much force that Eriol looked at her with surprise. Tomoyo's expression was still calm, but Eriol noticed the corners of her mouth twitching, her eyes slightly narrowing. "You know," she began, exasperation seeping into her voice, "I'm starting to lose patience. I honestly don't know what to do anymore."   
  
"What are you talking about?"   
  
"I tried being nice," Tomoyo explained, gripping her steering wheel tightly. "But that didn't work too well. My opinions don't seem to matter to you."   
  
"That's not true--"   
  
"Then I tried being friendly and care-free at the mall," she went on, interrupting his argument, "but I guess that didn't make you happy either."   
  
"I don't think--"   
  
"Then, I tried being completely honest, but you just..." Tomoyo faltered. "I'm... I'm sorry. Forget I said anything. I'm just really tired, Hiiragizawa-kun."   
  
"Daidouji-san, you know I'm not asking you to do anything," Eriol said desperately. "I don't WANT you to do anything for me."   
  
Tomoyo smiled sadly at him, shaking her head as if she knew something he couldn't even begin to comprehend. "That's just the point, isn't it, Hiiragizawa-kun?"   
  


* * *

  
  
He won't even acknowledge your existence.   
  
But I do.   
  
See me.   
  
I need you.   
  


* * *

  
  
"I'm sorry," Eriol rubbed his eyes as Tomoyo drove. "I didn't mean to cause all this trouble."   
  
"Like a broken record," Tomoyo murmured absently.   
  
"I can't stop apologizing," he added. "I can't stop feeling guilty. I can't stop missing her. I can't stop loving her. I can't. Don't you get it?"   
  
"How can I?" she smiled, her voice like a distant echo. She didn't even look at him. "You won't let me into your life. You won't even acknowledge my existence."   
  


* * *

  
  
So what *do* you see in him?   
  
It's time for you to move on. Move on the way he can't. Show that you're strong, that your past has made you stronger. Don't be like him. Don't delude yourself by living in the past, for the past.   
  
Come to me.   
  
I need you.   
  
I love you.   
  


* * *

  
  
"I've dragged you into my life by making you the next unwilling target of my curse. I think that's more than enough involvement," Eriol muttered.   
  
"But you never *asked* me to be a part of your life," she said, more to herself than to anyone else. "You don't understand the difference."   
  
"There's no difference."   
  
She shook her head wearily. "What *do* I see in you?" she sighed. "I think... I think it's time for me to move on. Move on the way you can't."   
  
Eriol blinked. "What?"   
  


* * *

  
  
Die for me.   
  
Die for me.   
  
And I will acknowledge your existence.   
  


* * *

  
  
"Acknowledge my existence..."   
  


* * *

  
  
You need to get away from your house.   
  


* * *

  
  
"I need to get away from my house."   
  


* * *

  
  
Go to your garden. Your favorite place.   
  


* * *

  
  
"I'll... go to my garden. My favorite place."   
  


* * *

  
  
Tonight.   
  


* * *

  
  
Tomoyo smiled. "Tonight."   
  
Eriol only stared at her, confused.   
  


* * *

  
  
When they arrived back at the Daidouji mansion, the phone was ringing, so Tomoyo rushed to pick the receiver up in the living room. After a few seconds, her serious mood brightened, and she held the phone out to Eriol. "It's for you," she declared with a smirk, one hand on her hip.   
  
Eriol raised an eyebrow. "Who is it?"   
  
"Yamazaki-kun," Tomoyo answered. "I'll be in the kitchen making some dinner if you need me, all right?"   
  
Eriol shrugged. "All right. Thank you."   
  
Expecting a tall tale from his old friend, Eriol was taken aback by Yamazaki's somber tone as soon as he put the phone to his ear and said hello.   
  
"Hey, mind if I ask where you were in the past two hours?" Yamazaki inquired hastily.   
  
"No, I don't mind," Eriol said. "I was visiting Sak... an injured friend... at Tokyo General. Why?"   
  
Yamazaki didn't speak for a moment. "There's been a second murder, Hiiragizawa. It looks like Tokyo's got a serial killer in its hands."   
  
The guilt tightened in Eriol's chest, any hope he had of hearing Yamazaki's jokes dissipating instantly. "Where was it?" Eriol asked, after a moment of hesitation.   
  
"In the same area as the first murder. In fact," Yamazaki sighed, "it happened in the parking lot of Daidouji-san's apartment building just an hour ago."   
  
Swallowing hard, Eriol steadied himself by clinging to the table. "Who was she?"   
  
Yamazaki sounded tired when he spoke. "Hamada Miyoshi. Journalist, lived in Daidouji-san's building, twenty-seven years old..." he paused, as if he was deliberating about something.   
  
"And?"   
  
Eriol could practically hear Yamazaki's frown. "Hamada strongly resembled the first victim, Yoshizawa... and both looked a hell of a lot more like Daidouji-san than I'd like to admit."   
  
A heavy silence followed. Unable to respond, Eriol sank to his knees, his hands clenched into tight fists, his eyes shut tight.   
  
"Call me crazy, but I'm starting to think it wasn't bad luck that got you arrested yesterday, Hiiragizawa," Yamazaki said at last. "Of course I don't believe you did it, but some of my superiors think so."   
  
"I already told you. I was at the hospital this afternoon, so I couldn't have been at Daidouji-san's apartment..."   
  
"I know, but there were witnesses at this crime scene who spotted someone who looks a lot like you in the area this afternoon."   
  
"If you want proof, there are more witnesses at the hospital," Eriol whispered. "Go interview them."   
  
"I'm not accusing you," Yamazaki said appeasingly. "In fact, getting security tapes from the hospital to clear your name is the first thing I'm going to do. I'm a lot more worried about the fact that there seems to be a serial killer wandering around Tokyo who looks like you, and whose targets fit Daidouji-san's description. To tell you the truth," Yamazaki sighed, "I'm worried. Chiharu is, too. This guy might be some kind of obsessive stalker who could have been following you two around since college, for all we know."   
  
"That's ridiculous! Why would anyone stalk us?"   
  
"Believe me. People can be *twisted*. This guy could have decided to start the killings now because you're back from England. The timing fits," Yamazaki revealed seriously. "Is there anything you want to tell me that you can't tell anyone else, Hiiragizawa?"   
  
"No," Eriol snapped.   
  
Yamazaki didn't seem to be fazed by Eriol's attitude. "Well, I just thought you, out of all people, needed to know. Be careful, all right? This is serious business. This guy is horrible. The idiots investigating the case already nicknamed him 'Heartbreaker' because he literally steals women's hearts. It's an unbelievably stupid nickname, but it fits all too well."   
  
Eriol felt his stomach lurch. "Thanks for the warning."   
  
"No problem. I just thought you should know. If you care about Daidouji-san half as much as I think you do, you won't let her out of your sight. Not even for a minute."   
  
That was when Eriol felt it. Something was wrong again--something was missing. Eriol's eyes widened, and he glanced instinctively towards the kitchen.   
  
Tomoyo was gone.   
  
He couldn't feel her presence within the boundaries of his shield. He couldn't feel *anything*. In his panic, Eriol didn't say goodbye when he slammed the phone back into its cradle and ran.   
  
  
  
-= End Part Six =-   
  
  
  
Chapter Started: May 9, 2003   
Chapter Finished: August 27, 2003   
  
End Notes:   
Overall, this was definitely the most difficult chapter to write. Talk about severe writer's block! >_   
Thanks for reading!   
  
In the Next Chapter (in no particular order):   
- A long-awaited kiss.   
- A few new faces.   
- A spark of jealousy.   
- A turn for the worst.   
  
Please review and direct all questions, comments, and criticisms to rune_dreaming@yahoo.com. Thank you!   
  
Copyright (C) 2002-2003 by Dark Rune. All rights reserved. 


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